As a teacher and a regular visitor to the Philippines, I thought that it might be interesting to explore the topic “Why I teach.”
First, let me say something about myself. I studied English in a university and worked thereafter in the road haulage business. After a time, I became frustrated by the fact that I was not able to use my brain in the way I wanted, so I took a temporary job as an English teacher in a British secondary school.
One post led to another but before too long, I realized that the whole world wanted native-speaking English teachers and that it might be a good way to see something of our planet.
This led me to Germany, Libya, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Bahrain and back to the Netherlands. I have worked in the secondary level and also in further and higher education.
Sometimes, I stayed for one or two years; sometimes, for much longer.
One of the first things I noticed was that there was a huge difference between visiting a country on holiday and actually working there. As a worker, you see things that the tourist never notices. You become familiar with the lives of the local people and the impact of social and economic policy on their hopes and ambitions.
Educational systems range from the flexible and innovative, to the rigid and conservative.
In England in the 1960s, I saw teachers taking control of the curriculum and devising imaginative educational experiences for the students. This might involve leaving the classroom and walking on the local hillsides, and investigating geography and industrial archaeology.
In Istanbul, on the other hand, inspectors insisted that all the students’ results be handwritten on a little, old-fashioned booklet called a “carnet,” despite the fact that everything had been entered on the school’s sophisticated computer system. That was the rule and modern technology did nothing to change it.
If the systems vary, the motivation of the students remains remarkably constant. They seek approval from their classmates and their teachers, and they strive to maximize their grades by any means in their power.
Some have an easy life, like the Bahraini girl whose parents offered to buy her a Porsche Carrera if she would agree to go to a local university instead of moving to Europe. Others, like the Palestinian scholarship students I taught at a Saudi university, realize that education is their only chance in life and that they must grasp it.
These differences are circumstantial—the students are driven by the same imperatives.
So why do I teach? When I left my own school, a place of snobbery and beatings, staffed by old men who tended to fall asleep in the classroom after lunch, I swore that it was a job I would never do.
Yet I gave it a try in 1968 and I am still at it in 2013. Taking out a couple of years of further study, I calculate that I have been teaching for 43 years and I have just signed a new contract.
It should be clear by now that I enjoy it. It can be frustrating but the mental stimulation from working with young people, whose minds are brimming with ideas and enthusiasm, more than compensates for this.
I believe that education can be pleasurable for the students and for the teacher. Stern discipline is easy to maintain but it produces passive students who will obey orders and that is not what the modern world needs.
Lastly, teachers should be aware of the tremendous power they have for good or ill. I can still remember the brutal and sarcastic comments that teachers made to me over 50 years ago. The pain of the physical punishments has long ago faded but the mental hurts remain.
So do not retreat into the power that the teacher’s role confers—be prepared to learn from your students and to exchange ideas with them. It is rewarding and it is fun.
That’s why I teach.
Hugh Mitchell taught in the international department at Stedelijk College Eindhoven in the Netherlands for 19 years, then left to teach in Istanbul, Turkey, the Czech Republic and Bahrain. He has been back at Stedelijk for about two and a half years.