A noble profession

 “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” – Albert Einstein

On Wednesday, two other students and I were asked to represent Queen’s College at the Consultation on the Teacher’s Council at the Convention Centre. And throughout the entire presentation I was forced to think about why my fellow students and I had absolutely no inclination to take up teaching as a profession. We’ll be churning out lots of doctors and lawyers and engineers and computer geeks, but no teachers.
And it’s a bit sad really, because there won’t be any doctors or lawyers if there wasn’t anyone to pass on knowledge and teach people how to be doctors or lawyers.
Of course we live in world where everyone is judged by the clothes they wear or the cars they own – a shallow way of grading people, but at the moment, that’s just how it is. So, when people think about possible careers, they have to consider the financial rewards they could reap. In my tradition, nothing else can be achieved in life unless we have the resources.
And at the moment, teaching doesn’t seem to be one of the most lucrative jobs on the market. And that’s a shame, because again, you can’t have doctors without teachers, so teachers should probably be as well paid as doctors. How many doctors you know own cars? How many of your teachers have their own cars?
Not enough people are choosing teaching as a profession. At school, we’re understaffed: the teachers we have are overworked. Senior schools like Queen’s College should be thronged and overwhelmed by applications from overqualified teachers. But instead, we have vacancies.
What’s the point of placing all the ‘top students’ at NGSA into these schools and not staff them with commensurate teachers? Teaching at the senior schools should be an honour and the teachers teaching there should probably be treated as such. These teachers should be given more benefits and the job should become so attractive that many more students will be opting to become teachers.
The job should become so valuable that the teachers should have to give teaching their all, to give it all they’ve got because so many people would be queuing up to be potential candidates for their job. It doesn’t have to be just money: why can’t every teacher with five years of service be entitled to a duty-free car?
Teaching truly is a noble profession. If knowledge is power, and one of the most precious things in life, then teachers are the ones who get to spread that knowledge to millions of schoolchildren every day.
Not enough children are thinking about becoming teachers. And we need to start asking ourselves why. The secret of all development is “Incentives!!! Incentives!!! Incentives!!! Teachers need to hype the teaching profession to their students – they need to start inspiring their students to become teachers. As many geologists and lawyers that are brought in to speak to us about their profession on Career Day, there should be teachers, speaking to us about their profession, encouraging us to take up the profession.
Talk about a Teaching Council emulating a Medical Council or Bar Association will only work when the teaching profession is treated like the medical and legal professions, especially where it counts most – status, respect and income. And not necessarily in that order.