From Teacher to Master
With this sentence I decided to summarize my career and the years I spent teaching. My choice was to become a master for the rest of my life. I teach English and Spanish. But it does not matter the subject we teach, feelings and goals are always similar.
Firstly I will specify that by “master” I mean to a person who is more than a teacher: is a person who not only “transmit” knowledge or help to forge it in class. He is a person who accompanies the process of life and life is much broader than one subject.
Teaching for me has been the most profound, enriching and satisfying experience I’ve ever had. At the beginning of my career I was born as a teacher, asking for discipline and silence in the classroom. But little by little I realized that things had to be done in other less conventional ways. I come from a country where education is poor and there is much lack. But experience teaches us the most important lesson: we are working with people, not robots, wherever we are.
The importance of understanding the impact we can have on a human being who thinks, feels, gives opinions, and lives is vital. Much more than once during the eight years that I teach I heard the personal stories not only of my students, but also their mothers and families: “My husband beats me and my children saw it”; “I am scared, I do not want my son becomes alcoholic”; ” I am divorced and I want my son to accept my new partner”,” I work and study at the same time because only my mom sustains us, we are four children”.
The reflection sometimes goes far beyond just deciding how to work in the classroom or whether to give homework or not. Sometimes the unexpected question comes after all left the classroom: “how contraceptive methods work?”
Teaching is the experience of feeling the other person, knowing what he or she needs at that time and being in touch with our own intuition to say the right words at a time that can mark that life forever. At that time when he had no one else to rely on and he trusted us.
Teaching is learning. Learning from these experiences, learn from them every day and see them progress; we see them changing. Teaching is learning to be a better person every day. Teaching is an act of love. The teacher-student relationship is a relationship of love. You want to see them grow up and overcome the challenges presented to them, give them a push and trust them. Many times we need someone to trust us for us to trust ourselves. And that’s where we stop being teachers and become masters.
A man once told me “There are teachers by necessity and there are teachers by service vocation”. We always decide which side to be. We enjoy free will. But the most beautiful feeling is to give everything, leave a piece of us in a classroom every day, watching them grow up and support them whenever we can.
I would love to invite other teachers and people to live the most exciting challenge: to stop being teachers and become masters. Every day we can be the best version of ourselves. Who teaches always looks to learn from others, and those experiences are a way to grow and improve every day. Personally, I still have a long way to go, but now I know I’m in the right way.
Judit Reque
Tell us your experience with learning or teaching a language and you might be the winner of 100€. Contest ends December 31st 2015.