A Teacher's Personal Experience Worth Sharing

 IT IS NOT WHAT YOU EXPERIENCED THAT MAKES YOU LOSE PASSION FOR THE TEACHING JOB BUT YOUR BELIEF ABOUT THE EXPERIENCES

I have had senior colleagues tell me, "you are new in the service that's why you are saying or doing that. When you are in it for long and experience some of the maltreatment and disrespect we faced overtime, all that passion you claim to have will vanish."

I don't know how many years that's supposed to take before I begin to lose the passion, I don't know the intensity of the maltreatment or disrespect I have to face to be enough to knock off the passion but what I can say is that, after many years in the service now, I'm still yet to have that particular nerve wrecking encounter. 

I asked them about some of such terrible experiences and in fact, I have experienced a good number of them already.

 Serving in a typical village with no social amenities, three months pay policy, meagre salary challenges, paying for services at the district office that should be free, serving under terrible conditions, challenges and arguments with colleague teachers, being looked down upon by some officers, promotion delay, study Leave with pay challenges, large class size with few or no TLMs,  just name them. I had a feel of them all.

I don't know about you but if you ask me, I will say, it is not the experiences in themselves that knock you off. It is your belief or perception about the experiences that cause the lost of passion. Maybe if you reduce your expectations from your employer, colleagues, learners and the entire system, you will be doing yourself some real good. 

Do your best and have fun. Don't attach your happiness to anybody or anything. Live in the moment as it happens to you and make the best out of it no matter how ugly the situation is. Get over things quickly and move on. There's more to life. The teaching profession by default is about service to humanity which usually entails sacrifice. 

Our reward is in heaven. Let's keep the passion on unabated.

From: Informed Teachers Network