Some thoughts on Education

It has long been said that “those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach”: A long-standing joke in the big wide world of work that anyone who doesn’t have anything else to do, can always go into teaching. And I have to admit, I have met a fairly large number of current and former students who have said the words “there’s always teaching, I suppose”. But why? Why is it that teaching is regarded as this fall-back career for people who have no other useful skills?

Everyone remembers at least one teacher from their schooldays. Sometimes, it’s the truly useless member of staff who appeared to have little or no knowledge of anything that isn’t in their out-of-date textbook, and didn’t have any interest in children, let alone sharing their wisdom with them. But the teachers who, in my opinion, remain the most memorable are those who truly made a difference to the lives and learning of their students. Those teachers who were able to have fun, who built up relationships with every single one of their students, who were able to make even the most banal subject matter come alive. These are the teachers who are remembered most. 

There are two main reasons a child will dislike a certain subject: 1. they aren’t very good at it, and 2. they don’t find it interesting. Often the two reasons go hand in hand. But the underlying issue beneath these reasons? The teacher. If a child is not naturally gifted at something, why should it not still be enjoyable? For something to be enjoyable, it has to be interesting. It is the job of every teacher to make their subject special, to make sure that even the weakest of students can still have fun. Bref: if the teacher isn’t bothered, neither are the students.

I had my share of bad teachers at school, but I also had some completely fantastic ones. My educational choices up to this moment are, without a doubt, down to them, and I wouldn’t change that for the world (read more nostalgia here). I plan (yes, plan) to enter the teaching profession after I graduate in the hope that I can be even half as good as they were to me. That I might, just maybe, be able to inspire one child like I was inspired at school.

To have the chance to influence what are arguably the most important years of someone’s life, to have the chance to share with those young people your knowledge and excitement about a subject, is such a privilege, and it saddens me that so many regard teaching as a professions for “cannots”. In my view, those who can may do, but they would never have got there without being taught it first.