It already dawned on me that I am
now officially out of the teaching profession since I resigned more than three weeks ago
from the university; and I have yet to adjust to my new work and working
environment which I found to be not that really hostile however demands lots of
mental and physical power. Read: pressure.
It has been three weeks away from
the vantage view of the whiteboard and congested classrooms but the breathing
life of the teaching routine which has sustained me whether in the physical or
the metaphysical terms for almost four years is still entrenched in my system
and psyche that I sort of miss this profession touted by many as the noblest of
all. And on the ‘noblest profession’ part, I still incline to agree.
However, this is not to romanticize
the teaching profession although I always have the tendency to romanticize
things. As a self-proclaimed romanticist of sort, that has always been my
mortal sin. In fact, anyone can romanticize the teaching profession and it
rightly deserves so. But then reality resonates, how can one romanticize
further what has already gained respect and reverence as a profession. How can
one idealize further something that is already larger than life and is close to
being indispensable, if not already so? We say that teaching is the noblest of
all profession? To what extent really?
Teaching was my first job. Fresh
out of college some four years ago—demure and anxious as to what lies ahead of
the “real world” just like everyone else—I’ve decided to pick up the whiteboard
marker and embraced the teaching profession. Only one thing seemed impossible
and rather ludicrous at the moment, which is ironically the one thing necessary
for a profession such as teaching: my lack of confidence and my self-limiting
withdrawal from anything that is social. Because the truth is, I thought I was
too shy to become a teacher. I was too impassive and too concerned only with
myself to be someone who is supposed to be responsible for the education of the
youth, much more the future of this nation. For the life of me, it was not in
my wildest imagination and rational intention that one day I will be someone
that is regarded by many as a shaper of lives and moulder of minds. If that is
too romantic, short of cliché-ish, that is only because I believe it is how one
should suppose to see the teaching profession, and not as something short of a
business enterprise. If ever it goes to that degree, business in education is
permitted only if it’s in the context of doing business to transform lives.
Period.
That is the weight that the
people who are in this profession carry upon their shoulders. But unlike Atlas who
carried the world on his shoulders however, the teacher’s responsibility to the
world is not something mythical because it is real; but it can be legendary. And
they are rather like Prometheus, that Greek non-conformist who defied the
system which is the gods, and gave fire to mankind. Teachers, through the sacred
platform of education and learning unleash that fire to people, that essential
catalyst which has been responsible for the progress and survival of human
civilization up to this day. Pray tell, how noble is that? With this I’m all hats
off to these living legends and modern-day heroes.
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| (Photo from the internet) |
Which brings us to this: are
teachers being given the due accolade they deserve from the community which
they help build and sustain? Or are they slowly being marginalized due to a
post-structural thinking that the community is self-sufficient and
self-contained?
In today’s globalized and integrated world, the capitalist
appetite for power and control relegates teaching to the blue collar job, a
no-good profession that does nothing more than to measure in quantitative
yardsticks a person’s capacity or whether he is fit for a work or otherwise. We
now seem to know a lot of ways to measure a person’s intelligence and aptitude,
and unfortunately, we equate education as such. Is how much a person learns more valuable that what he/she actually learns? Worst, when one uses teaching only as
a tool for the advancement of personal ambitions—for control and
manipulation—then teaching fails absolutely in its supposed duty.
But we cannot
solely blame teachers for that. It pays to look at the context of the community
upon which teachers are received and perceived.
(to be continued...)
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