Can teaching still be a job of passion?
I've been wanted to teach and educate since I was 11. Long story short, I started learning English at school (we started way later than kids do nowadays, unfortunately), and immediately felt like I loved helping my friends who were struggling. ๐ง Why did A not understand the teacher like I did? Why did B understood this example while C didn't? Wrapping my head around others' logic and ways of understanding things felt awesome. Not letting them fall behind. Fast forward years, still having the flame, being around teachers, educators, mentors, I slowly realize something that made me doubt. [I don't want to stigmatize, so I'll only speak about what I notice here, in my country. That said, I spoke about that quite a bit with @Paula Soito, @Matt Rice and @Mark Zammit so I'd love to hear your insights.] ๐ I realized teachers lost their passion, sooner and sooner in their career. I started wondering if some even started to choose that path by default. Once, I witnessed a teacher's training. They were asked to depict the organization of a school. Most of them drew a vertical organization chart, with kids at the bottom. I mean... remove the kids and y'all end up with no job. I was baffled ๐ฏ Students, pupils, learners, whatever you call them, are at the heart of a successful education system, not the other way around. ๐Teaching is a passion job at its core. But it's hard to keep the flame burning in the environment French teachers are put in. Usually, before middle school, pupils have 1 (2, max) teachers for the whole year. And then... 30 pupils per classroom in average, between 1 and 5h per week of teaching depending on the topic you teach, a program your salary depends on so you never deviate from it... But how you supposed to give every kid the moment of attention they deserve daily? How can you make them feel heard and understood? How can you even adapt to every one's way of understanding, logic, strength, weakness?