A TEACHER: BY PROFESSION?

CARYL LISSETTE A. REYES “Teacher by profession, mother by heart”, a simple phrase which represents the whole essence of being a teacher, or it supposed to. But now the bigger question is, what’s the purpose of teachers for teaching is it really for the education or just for the sake of money?

Being a teacher is not only a “professional” matter but it’s deeper than doing your profession. Doing your work properly, preparing everything, performing well, earning money, and repeating all this stuff as a teacher, you can say that you are doing your profession, apparently, this will never be enough. To be able to teach requires a heart which desires to give knowledge and to prepare a better future for the young generation not a heart which desires to earn money and to be rich just to be called a successful in her profession. Woefully, this misconception of performing the duties as a teacher slowly dragging down the power of education and learning without being noticed. How? Simply because, the power of learning comes from the desire of the students to learn and to do tasks willingly. Their learning will always be in their teacher’s hand, but how can a teacher encourage a student to study harder when she shows to her student that she never cared about what the student will learn and all she care is about the salary waiting for her after this “sufferings” from teaching?

Being a teacher is actually being a mother. When you choose to take the path of being a teacher it just like you taken the journey of being a mother to the children you never know, you will teach them, train them and most specially you will nourished them, and after that they will leave. Leaving you unsure if they can still remember you in the future. To tell you honestly, that’s the sense of being a teacher. A mother will take care and will love her child without any exceptions, a teacher must be a mother as well, eager to give her child all he needs, knowledge, wider understanding, hopes and dreams. A teacher is like a mother, which can love all her children fairly who can give a lot of patience, who really cares. A mother worked hard and never complains about it she was tired but she never received even a single centavo as an exchange of her work… a teachers are like her, they are not after the money but they are after the things they can give to their students, ironically, not everyone who holds a bachelor degree, who passed the licensure examination for teachers are a true teacher by their heart.

Stating things like this may sound ruthless and cruel for some people, but this abominable and outrage fact can change a lot of things. This may be irrelevant but this is an important matter to reflect with. Come to think of it, why do some teachers need to think and to worry about the money they will gain for teaching? Isn’t it more fulfilling to know that you made a curios and wondering young mind filled with knowledge? Isn’t it more heartwarming that one of your students is a successful citizen? Aren’t you dreaming about a child that sits inside your classroom and listens intently to your lectures became somebody in the future? Haven’t you think that maybe one of your naughtiest students will be a great leader in the future? Seeing all of those things happen are more than gaining money this success cannot be compared with the amount of money you received. Yes, the salary of a teacher is not enough for all the stress, tiredness and exhaustion but money cannot buy the happiness of witnessing your students to achieve and to reach their dreams. Money cannot give you the feeling that finally your hard word had results into something; most importantly money cannot replace all the happiness you will gain for having a part on somebody’s success.

Success cannot be measured by how much money you earned from teaching nor from what properties have you gained from your salary, the true success is having a chance to perform the real essence of being a teacher, success is when you made somebody’s life to change by teaching them to dream a better future, when you left this world and somebody can still remember you and can say “I won’t be here if not because of my teacher’”. The precious success of being a teacher is when you know that you fulfilled your mission in teaching and that you know that you left a legacy to be looked back by your students that you turned from nobody to somebody.

— oOo— The author is Teacher III at Abelardo G. Tinio Elementary School, Angeles City