I always wanted to be a teacher. When I was a child, I used to play with my friends and even with my dolls -they were my pupils and obviously I was the teacher. I used to enjoy teaching them, correcting their exercises, writing on the board, preparing the materials for the classes, ... This is a typical game everybody plays but, in my case, it turned out to be my job years later.
As almost all of you know, I really love my job, it makes me really happy and I feel good when I'm in a classroom with you all. It doesn't matter if I'm tired or not, or if I'm having a bad day, everything vanishes the very moment the class starts. That's the moment when my favourite saying comes true -"Teaching is learning"-. Every day I learn something from you. You teach me a lot of things, they cover a wide number of different topics and even how to become a better teacher, that's why I'm really thankful to all of you.
We all know that being a teacher involves a lot of things, not only knowing our subject well and using our imagination to try pupils understand it. It's much more than that.
A colleague from the school sent me this funny clip some time ago. Now I would like you to watch it. I hope you understand most of it and then you can comment on it.
How was it? Easy or difficult to understand? Do you agree with it? Why (not)?
As your final activity for the course "Aulas Europeas", leave your comment on this entry.
"Why are you a teacher? When did you decide to become one? Do you like your job? What are the good and the bad points of it?"
Now it's time to tell you THANK YOU FOR YOUR ACTIVE PARTICIPATION and I'm really looking forward to seeing you soon.
I love teaching and I love my job. My mother was a teacher and my grandfather too, so I think I always like teaching. Teenagers are my best reason to keep on working. They are very funny and imaginative, and they make me feel younger everyday. Although they sometimes behave badly, they are always grateful if you help them. Once they asked me why I like to be a teacher, and I told them, "because I like dangerous work" but I realize they are one of my reasons to live.
ResponderEliminarEsther
The most important thing in this job is that we like doing it. It would be an unbearable task to be with pupils for a lot of hours every day and not enjoying it. I know it's really hard sometimes or better said, most of the times, but we all have to be imaginative to catch their attention in a lot of different ways. But we have to stick to our guns and mainly, don't lose your enthusiasm.
EliminarHi Sofía, I’ve just seen your blog and I am impressed!! It’s very nice. I like it. I recognized the picture as I saw it. I liked a lot Camden Market, specially because I was said that it wasn’t very interesting and it is the part of the city that surprised me more.
ResponderEliminarWell, going to our issue, I studied Medicine, so I was not thinking abou being a teacher while I was at the University, but when I ended my studies I realized that I didn’t like the idea of working with sick people all my life, and that I really liked a few things of Medicine. That was a problem because you cannot work in many jobs with this career, but I discover that I could be a teacher in Profesional Schools (Formación Profesional). So I changed my destiny and started working as a teacher in 1989.
I love teaching when the students want to learn. Regrettably, we must stand the boys and girls under 16 when they don’t want to stay in the school, but is mandatory and we cannot avoid it.
My best years where when I was in Adult Education. The students were there because they wanted and I was teaching them to became Nurse Assistants (Auxiliares de Enfermería). Now I am a Biology teacher.
This term I have a great group of students in 1º of ESO. I love them, they listen to me, do the exercises, even when they are not mandatory…. The pity is that this cover only three hours of my schedule, but if all the groups were like this one I could feel that I had the perfect work.
So, in resume, I like teaching, sometimes I enjoy it a lot, but sometimes is very hard and I wonder if I shouldn’t be doing other things... because it's true: EDUCATION IS A MIRACLE!!!
Míriam Sánchez Martín
Why am I teacher? It´s a good question.
ResponderEliminarI became a little children teacher by chance.
When I was a teenager I wanted to be an engineer, or a mathematician, so I started to study maths at the university. But I realized it was more dificult for me than I´ve though.So when I was preparing my september exams I decided that I have to change my mind. What coul I do then? It was an important decisión but the options were as dificults as maths and I didn´t want to loose another course so I decided to study to be a techer, first to be a maths teacher.
However at the end of the first course they asked to us for some people to startd the new studies for preeschool teachers (it was new in Salamanca) and they told us thah it would be easier to get a job whit them. So I changed my mind again.
That was the way how I became a little children teacher.
But along my working years I discovered that the children are lovely, they make you feel alive, they believe in you, trust you and love you too. They are grateful, cheerful, imaginative, funny and, how Esther saids, make me feel young every day.
They are always ready to learn all the new things that you teach them and you can also learn a lot of things of them.
So nowadays I love teach, I enjoy my job everyday and I hope I´ll can do it for a long time. That is the reason for me to think that EDUCATION IS A MIRACLE.
M. Dolores Martín.
Really, really, "teaching is learning".
ResponderEliminarAntonio Gutiérrez Turrión
I´m a teacher because I enjoy teaching very much. When I was very young ever said to my mother that I would like to be a teacher like my grandmother and my grandfather. After, when I finished my college I decided to become one.
ResponderEliminarThis is a hard job but there are things that compensate this.
One of the bad points of this job is that you have to do of psychologist and I don´t prepared for this and the people thinks that you not want to work.
One of the good points of this job is the satisfaction when you see a pupil surprised and enjoy about the thing you are teaching.
Great, I love this video, although I didn’t understand everything. I’d liked to see it subtitled in English, of course. I agree with Taylor Mali, I love the way he expresses what is education and what teachers do in class. I can see myself in some aspects but not in others.
ResponderEliminarWhy I became a teacher? I guess I joined my two great passions: physical education, sports, movement, and my dream since I was a girl, to be a teacher. So I'm quite happy, I feel totally fulfilled in my job and it costs me nothing to get up in the morning to go to school. Also, P.E teachers are always the cool teachers in the school and the kids always want to go to our classes. What more could I want?
There is another great video of Tailor Mali called “what teachers make” Mª Elena Pérez Mellado
I think teaching is more than just a job: it's a kind of special calling.I knew that I wanted to be a teacher because I saw what a special importance had in my life the grat teachers I've had. Moreover,there are in my family four generations of teachers).
ResponderEliminarI love my job because I learn every day more and more; I become a more complete person every year, I think.There is a latin proverb: "qui docet, discit"(he who teaches learns). Besides, it's impossible to be bored: my brain is constantly engaged and I work to solve a lot of daily problems... Every day is a new challenge.I've read Greek and Latin and I must be an strong motivator in order to show my pupils how important can be learning these classic and antique languages to acquire future skillls in modern and foreign languages too... There are frustrating moments, but for me there are also intangible rewards, and I feel me payed with every inspiring moments.
There are also bad points:I think this job isn't well-suited to everyone. I highly respect anyone able to be that because we are underappreciated, underestimated and underpaid; and sometimes the students are ungrateful and nasty.On the other hand, we have security in our job.finally, for me, the most important payment comes if I find a way to make a difference in th lives of my pupils. This is the biggset reward.
Well, the truth is that when I was a child I never thought that I would become a teacher. The father of my grandfather was a school teacher in the north of León, but I never knew him and he was only a distant figure with a strange job and the rest of my ancestors had worked in another things. Then I went to the High school and I thought that there wouldn’t be more interesting plan than being a historian. I thought that I could teach History in the course and excavating on holidays (because I wanted to be archaeologist). So I began the studies of History but I soon forgot my plans about Archaeology (it’s very dusty, dirty and tired). When I finished in the University I met that there were not jobs for historians, except teaching in High school. But at the same time I always thought that if you have a great story to tell (and History is the biggest story to be told) you had to tell it to someone, no matter whom. So, I decided to become a History teacher and I think that I’m not a very bad one because I love my subject and I love to boring my pupils with the Hi-stories that I know. In my job I have seen many teachers that are sad, depressed and bored, and many times they have a lot of reasons for that (the fathers, the Administration, the loose of their authority...), but many of them don’t love their subjects and it’s very hard to teach something that it’s indifferent to you to the teenagers.
ResponderEliminarWhy am I a teacher?. I never thought that I would be a teacher because when I finished my career in Chemistry, I would want to work in Chemical Industry. I thought that teaching would be boring because I would do the same every year and, I was afraid to get into the routine. However I have been teaching since 1989 and my thoughts have changed. Now I like my job. Although I repeat the same unit in the same course, my pupils are different each year and I can do new things whatever I want. It isn’t boring. I can break the routine with the laboratory and other activities more interesting. Besides students always teach me something every course. In these years I had bad and good experiences in my job, but there were more positive than negative. With respect to negative experiences it’s important to point out that the worse is the relationship, sometimes, with our colleagues. It could be dangerous to our mental health. Despite all, teaching is wonderful if you really like it.
ResponderEliminarJesús Pérez Trancón
Juan Carlos Durán
ResponderEliminarI agree with Sofia in the sense that teaching is not only "reading the daily lesson to the pupils". Teaching is a communication process between the teacher and his/her pupils, and information, emotions and feelings flow in both directions. Nobody can teach you to be a teacher, you have to develop, to create your teacher's own profile.
A colleague of mine thinks that teaching is similar to acting in a (theatrical) play, or to conducting an orchestra. A teacher has to keep attention to his/her group, and this is a very difficult issue, because their needs change from a day to another day. Teaching is an art, a very low-paid art.
I don't agree with the common idea that teaching is a "vocational" job. Excuse me, but I leave the word "vocation" to priests, monks and nuns.
Every time I heard the word "vocation" related to teaching I think in a new excuse to justify the increasing of workload, the decreasing of our incomes or both.
Excuse me, but I'm teacher in order to earn my daily bread. Well, I do my best in my job, as expected, and it's a difficult and low-paid job.
Do you ask your butcher the reason why he becomes a butcher? Why do teachers have to justify every day and before every people the reason to become a teacher?
I think everyone was a pupil when he/she was a child. They had teachers, but it's not a right to say every teacher you meet your opinion about teaching, or to put the blame on every teacher you meet that you never was able to understand the trigonometric functions.
If I would be a surgeon, I wouldn't expect that everybody tells to me his/her bad experiences with surgery when they realize my job. If I would be a physician, I wouldn't to expect to be asked how many of my patients did die last week.
A common question that every teacher has to heart:
How many pupils did you give a low mark last scholar term?
I always wanted to become a teacher and all my life has been related with teaching and learning. I grew up in a extended family with a enormous background of teaching experiences. My grandfather, my mother, my father…and most of my relatives were teachers so the teaching process runs in my veins.
ResponderEliminarI have been teaching for thirty three years… a very long time, of course. After all these years it is crystal clear that teaching is a big miracle. But it is just only if you enjoy this job and make it your best then your become a miracle worker. With your little help and with your every single class, your student will grow up, their minds will become bigger and bigger, they will appreciate you and will give you a lot of satisfactions. Even from those students that had to make a big effort to pass my hard History exams… Sorry, I forgot to tell you I am a Geography and History teacher, a difficult subject to learn for pupils and teenagers. Seeing their faces looking at me during my lessons, asking me questions related with this amazing subject makes me feel like a wizard.
Besides of making miracles, being a teacher has made me a patient and open-minded person by the fact of dealing with different pupils, students and teenagers. Also it has become me brave and has provided me rich people skills. So, in same way my job has helped me to grow. On the other hand, the perks o best benefits of being a teacher are the long time holiday that allows me to arrange other activities, also the flexibility to stay at home with my kids, before and after their school, because all of us had the same calendar. And the most exciting thing, being a teacher has made me an expert by teaching my subject. As you well know the best way to learn a topic is teaching it.
I love my job. However, when I was child I wanted to be singer or actress! But when I finished my university studies, I got a job like teacher. It was in a nuns´ school, in Valladolid. This job lasted three months and the experience was really good. I taught to teenager pupils. Sometimes it was rather difficult doing they paid me attention. Again and again, they discussed and argued and it was impossible to taught the lesson. In spite of all I was very happy with my job, mainly because I had more free time than if I worked in other job. After that I decided that I wanted to be teacher and currently I work like economy´s teacher in a high school.
ResponderEliminarInma Benito
There are two main reasons why I´m a teacher. The first reason is that I had a very good math teacher in my high school. I wanted to be like her. The second reason is that I have helped several relatives and friends to understand mathematics since I was student and I enjoyed doing this. I liked being able to help others. When I finished my studies I found it the best option, a secure job and many holidays.
ResponderEliminarBut the work is not as easy as I thought. We have to do thing we have not trained. I had to learn many things every year and I am still learning.
Sometimes it is hard but there are some pupils who make me go ahead.
Henar
Why am I a teacher? Well, I think it's a very good question but a little bit difficult to answer it too.
ResponderEliminarI am teacher for some reasons. First of all, when I finished the university I decided to work in a laboratory, but I felt that this kind of work was very boring and lonely for me. I used to teach in my free time and I realized that this job made me feel good. Well, it's true that sometimes it's difficult to teach teenagers, but you can learn a lot of things of them too!
Anyway, I decided to left my job and I studied to become a teacher, and now I can say that I am! :D
It's my second year in this job, and I think that sometimes it's difficult for different reasons, the main reason I wrote it before, besides another bad point in my job is some pupils don't want to learn, and they are bored and then they make noise and it's impossible to teach!
Another bad point it's that sometimes some pupils don't paid attention and they don't understand anything!
But, in general I can say that I love my job and I can't imagine my life doing another job!
Puri Vidal Pérez
Why am I a teacher?
ResponderEliminarWorking as teacher is a very good job. After teaching seventeen years...I already like it.
I decided to be a teacher when I finished "COU" . That year I had give private lessons and I had been volleyball coach on a child´s team. I also think it has influenced some to be the oldest of five children.
On the one hand it is very pleasure when my pupils´ group finishs their time with me, two courses ,normally and they have gone growing up and developing their personality ,opening their mind and doing themselves more older, then I think, good job! they always take something from you.
On the other hand , every day I work with children, it becomes sometimes very tired. Especially if you have besides teaching constantly correcting bad behavior .However our holidays are good to have a rest and get a lot of energy.
To sump up I would like to say that I am a teacher who feel a responsibility to teach their students and I am happy in spite of everything.
Cristina Bardales Santos
sorry for the delay had problems with internet on the phone and just leave out of Salamanca.
ResponderEliminarthe main reason that I teach is that private enterprise working I did not like what I saw and always gave me good help to colleagues or friends in the materials of which I have more knowledge.
also, when I started working as a teacher saw how rewarding it could be for me, I'm sure I learn more ue of my students that they me.
despite the situation and that we are economically and in education, I am excited about future competitions to pass each day and be a better teacher.
I do not think being a teacher has bad things, just go excelling new challenges for ourselves.
Jose A. Blazquez Garcia
Hi Sofia, the blog is very nice. When I read your comment reminded me of my daughter when she was pupil. She always played to correct tests, prepare lessons and teach their dolls while I did the same for my students. I thought that maybe she was also a teacher, but now she is a nurse and already working in a Hospital and she loves her job.
ResponderEliminarI love my job too, I am very happy in it, although I am a teacher by chance.
I submit to one Opposition education for Vocational Training and then I approved and began my teaching career. My students are older and have a great interest in the training given. They know what they want and what they like, looking for a profession and are motivated in their teaching. They don´t usually cause problems.
The relationship established with the students is usually very good and they will continue to write e-mails when they have finished their studies. I have given many advices to them.
It's nice when you are with alumni in hospitals and greet you with affection and remember with they things from his time at the secondary school.
I hope to continue with the same enthusiasm on the job until retirement.
The only problem I find is I have to keep studying many time and improving the knowledge because the subjects are very complex in the health field. (Familia de Sanidad).
The video I found very hard to understand, I had to listen several times and do not know if I understand correctly.
I look forward to reading interesting articles on your blog and improve a bit my bad English.
With best wishes.
Francisca Acero
Antonio Rubio
ResponderEliminarHi Sofia, the blog is very nice.I love teaching and I love my job. I think we have, ucha responsibility because we have children in school are tomorrow's society and that makes our profession vital.
I remember it to a particular teacher "Father Angel", he made me a better person, always had a word of encouragement and support when things went well and I especially believe in me. And I try to do with the students I teach what they learn but always with a smile, because it will ahce well with them and all they have around them.
With best wishes.
Antonio Rubio
Hello! Sofia. I have liked very much the blog and the idea of writing in it.
EliminarWhen you listen to the video for the first time, it seems that you are going to understand it easily, because you recognize a lot of vocabulary because of the clear pronunciation of Taylor Mali, but little by little you realize that he speaks with so much rapidity, that you understand only, words and words. So I have needed to listen to it several times to be able to understand the real sense of his explanations.
In a general way I agree with him. As teachers we are an example in all the areas of the life. Our work goes beyond the limits of the timetable and, in occasions, it requires exclusive dedication. Teachers are observed by pupils, his parents, friends or even the own family. But above all, the society "demands you" to be a model of conduct, attitudes and values that you have to transmit to their children, our pupils.
Finally, comment that the "work" of the teacher should be a common project with the families and rest of social agents, though in occasions, this is the real MIRACLE.
And in relation with the previous thing, make clear that I am delighted with my job, in spite of being, as I say, the center of the comments of the others, about the obtained results, the level of exigency in the work or the number of days on holiday. Though, when you decide to be a teacher, you don't do it for one or another timetable, there is something inside of you that pushes you to do a work with persons, who often, they aren't interested in their own future and this is the hardest of this profession.
In my case I started to teach Physical Education in Primary School, which facilitated to me very much the motivation and the relation with the pupils. Nowadays I am working in a boarding school, with children of between 6 and 16 years of age, where they live in residence from Monday until Friday, but this, it is another history...
F. Jesús Martín Rozas