Becoming a teacher came to me as a second thought. I tried teaching during my college days as a way of supporting myself, but did not feel too successful, so the idea of making teaching career was dormant for many years. It came back to me in a phone conversation with my friend Jill. I was unemployed for several month, with slim prospect of finding another position in my technical field, and she said, “Why won’t you become a teacher?”, “a teacher?” I said “I don’t want to be a teacher” but few month later I was on rack… It is a long and frustrating journey that only the very determinant, desperate or insane take it with a stride and see it all the way through. There were tests, pre-requisites and tons of paper processing to do in order to pre-qualify. Once you overcame this stage, you had to face the “Go away! Don’t bother me!” attitude of the clerical staff at the university’s Teaching Credentialing Department office.
I took these steps bravely, without much zest, but with the knowledge that I am on the right path.
Then classes had started at last, and they were pure joy. From the moment I entered Mr. Sima’s class till the last class in the program (which happened to be Mr. Sima’s again) I enjoyed every step on my way to becoming a teacher. The faculty was absolutely fantastic, the classes fascinating, and the classmates inspiring. I couldn’t wait to start my teaching career. The few lucky ones of us who already had a position were looked upon with kin jealousy.
The program taught us everything. How to start with ice breakers, how to make our classes interesting by inserting everyday relevance to the teaching, how to use manipulatives, technology, games, motivation gimmicks. We learned how to address the gifted students and the ones with special needs, and even how to deal with administrators, supervisors and new rules and regulations that come bye every so very often.
They forgot (or ignored), however, only one aspect of teaching – Discipline. They failed to warn us that ninety percent of the time we will be busy shushing and pleading for students’ attention. They did not mention that ninety percent of our students would be, plainly, disinterested in what we have, and want, to relay to them. They had not warned us how helpless we would be against a “doing nothing” culture of students who refuse to put any effort, and how powerless the whole education system is in dealing with it…
