Challenges and Rewards of the Teaching Profession

Do you agree with Peter Beidler about the challenges and rewards of the teaching profession?
Share your views on the problem

To begin with I’d like to say that teaching is probably one of the most difficult professions. It involves high responsibility because it’s a teacher who helps a child to form his personality, world outlook, to understand what is wrong and what is right. To be a good engineer you should work hard but to be a good teacher working hard isn’t enough. You have to be cut out for it.

I fully agree with Peter Beidler that the profession of a teacher is red-eye, sweaty-palm and sinking-stomach. It is red-eye because you never feel ready to teach no matter how long you have been preparing for the class. It is sweaty-palm because you’re always nervous before you enter the classroom, and it is sinking-stomach because you walk out an hour later convinced that you were even more boring than usual. But still teaching is a very rewarding profession. As the teacher says: - I teach because I like the freedom to make my own mistakes, to learn my own lessons, to stimulate myself and my students. As a teacher I’m my own boss. - I teach because I like to ask questions. Questions that students must struggle to answer. Because the world is full of right answers to bad questions. - I teach because I like to learn. I teach best not what I know but what I want to learn. - Teaching gives me variety, challenge and opportunity to keep on learning. It gives me many woods to enter, many fine books to read, many ivory towers and real-world experiences to discover. - And the main reason why he teaches is his students. These people grow and change in his presence. A promotion out of teaching would give him money and power. But he already gets paid for doing the things he enjoys most - reading books, talking with people, making discoveries and asking questions. From my point of view teaching is a noble profession. It requires full commitment and great responsibility. A teacher should be some kind of example for students for them to long for following him.