Are there any other reasons why we teach, something not so obvious? Personally, I believe that a not-so-obvious reason we teach is to uplift ourselves and others, so we can find work that at least has some potential to make life fun and interesting, which many jobs don’t have.
Making life better is one subtle but real reason I can see for teaching. The “uplifting others” factor makes it no longer a job with pay and benefits but a profession, as in we “profess to use our position in society to help others no matter what we have to go through to do it”.
That is called service to others and service has a certain divine quality that makes work REAL.
In order to be able to do this profession, we have to, we absolutely must, get some sort of feeling of emotional reward* back from it into ourselves, because otherwise it would be all giving and that is not healthy, to give without getting something back, if anyone can relate to that idea….).
So we suffer in this profession (name me one teacher who doesn’t suffer in this profession and I will show you a bad teacher) – and there is no hyperbole in the use of that word – but in suffering we do something for the greater good of those around us and our society in general as per the previous article here on teen suicide. Teaching is a very high kind of social service work.
How does teaching work to serve us as well as our students and colleagues? How does that work? Well, in my view, ours is one of the few professions in which we can, if things go right in our training and we plummet deep into the bone marrow of the profession, be really creative.
We can have a job that is creative! We can turn language teaching from a job into a profession and from there into a form of art. How many professions can you say that about?
And it is a social art where, by bringing the simple yet much needed qualities of laughter, group creativity and love – again there is absolutely no hyperbole in the use of that word, love – into our language instruction, we can on certain days leave our buildings having experienced something like a party, but without the alcohol and other stimulants associated with “having fun”.
Teaching can be good clean fun everyday and so that is how we can uplift ourselves, and our students and yes, even some of the sad and needy and anxious and freaked out administrators, if we happen to have any of those in our building.
*not just from the four percenter students, but from all of them