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.

🧠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.]

👇

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 😯

Students, pupils, learners, whatever you call them, are at the heart of a successful education system, not the other way around.

🎓Teaching 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?

You just CAN'T.

So what happens next: ⤵️

Teachers are not heard or understood either. Even the most passionate ones end up delivering the same program over and over again, doing their best to cope up with a system that will never work and they have no word to say about.

They're desperate, not being able to help kids they know they could help, should they have the time (and be allowed?) to do it.

Teaching becomes a routine. Routines kills passion. Teaching without passion can't work.

On the pupils' side, it's not much better. Classes are made to accomodate the majority. If, unfortunately, you fall behind, it's over.

🪤The trap of failure is closing on you. Falling behind is considerer being stupid.

And the only one figure supposed to cheer you up and help you, the teacher, just can't. Not enough time (or freedom). They try to shove the general, one-size-fits-all explanation down your throat.

But that's not how you learn things.

"Why are we supposed to learn that?"

"I don't understand this way"

"Why is the teacher shouting at me, I'm doing my best"

We end up with kids not asking questions. We end up prioritizing marks over skills.

And that sucks. The education system fails the kids and turns them into low self-esteem adults. Adults that feel like they have no value. Like they have nothing to share with others. Because that's what they've been told, all their life, at school.

Fortunately enough, Skool gives us an opportunity to change that, and educate better, at our own level. To bring the passion back.

🌏We have the tools to give everyone the attention and chance they deserve. And even get paid for it, as a side-effect.

That's always been my life mission, it is even more now that I can help more people online that I could ever do IRL.

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