The benefits of teaching as a profession and a vocation

by Hussain El Zubair

For a dedicated teacher, the profession is also a hobby and a vocation. The possibility is that you may find many teachers regretting that they had decided to become teachers. But the reason is not the profession nor is it the working environment. It is the low earnings of the teacher.

Therefore, I would prefer to list advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

1. High levels of job satisfaction: a teacher gets satisfaction after every successful lesson he teaches and gets even more satisfaction combined with pride when his students move from one level to another. However, the satisfaction that pops up when a teacher meets one of his students who has become a doctor is not justified. I cannot claim having taught the doctor when I have only taught him ESL. 

2. A professional teacher never stops learning; so any teacher who has stopped reading, watching TV, listening to radio, reading professional journals, updating his knowledge in the subject he teaches, is definitely a teacher wh is no longer competent and should look for another job. 

3. Teachers truly feel that they shape the future of their countries. Preparing the students for the challenges of life, teaching them the methods of interacting, researching, discussing, agreeing and disagreeing, they prepare their students for life. However, if this type of education is interrupted by any biasis or personal beliefs, much harm is being done.

Disadvantages

1. Teachers are never well paid, except in some few countries and therefore suffer in their lives for the purpose of providing a decent life to their families. 

2. Some teachers are obliged to work in some remote areas in their countries; and being unable to afford travelling in their holidays are actually confined in small villages. This used to be a big problem for such teachers 20 years ago; but things are different now when the world has become a village.

I have been teaching since 1963 and I am proud of my profession and the advances I have made in my qualification. It has been a continuous trip of learning and I am still learning