the best teacher you’ll ever have
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I teach English language in an Asian country. During my 4 years of teaching, I’ve had many students come and go, and I’ve learned a few things about teaching. Not a lot, but some.
Excellent teachers are few and far between. They’re the kind of teachers that make you interested in learning. They care about what they are teaching, and you somehow end up caring about it, too. They change you and the way you look at life. They inspire you, and make you want to be a little like them. You know the kind - because they’re the kind of teacher that you always remember. These are the excellent teachers.
In your entire life, out of all the dozens or hundreds of teachers you’ve ever had, maybe you’ll have had two or three excellent teachers. (I’ve only had one that really shines out.) If you’re really lucky, you’ll have had a lot. But no student has ever had only excellent teachers.
I believe all students deserve excellent teachers. If we are going to send our children to the daily grind of a school for 18 years of their life, they deserve excellent teachers. Because if we expect excellence in school from our children, we should at least provide them with excellent teachers. And in an ideal world, nearly all teachers would be excellent.
But of course, judging by most of our own experiences, this is not the reality of the world. You cannot expect your teachers to be excellent. In fact, given statistical probabilities, you can expect your teachers and your children’s teachers to be… well, just average.
For the most part, I myself am an average teacher. I know I have the potential to be an excellent teacher, but I am quite a distance away from realizing that potential. There are other things in my life that preoccupy me right now - and this is probably true for many teachers. And most people. I try to do the best I can with everything that is going on in my life, but I know that what I give is probably not the best that my students can receive. This is why for almost every class of students I have now, I eventually tell them something along these lines:
“You’ll have many teachers in your life; all of them will come and go. Since only a few of your teachers will be excellent and most of them will be just average, the best teacher you’ll ever have is yourself. You are the only teacher that will always be with you. In the end, you are responsible for your own education – you have to teach yourself.
“Don’t believe what any teacher says just because they are “the” teacher. Teachers do not know everything – not even everything about their own subject. And even if they do know everything about their subject, they may not be good at teaching it. All over the world, there are many “good” teachers, and there are many “bad” teachers. So who decides whether or not a teacher is good or not? You must eventually decide. But I do believe that while you can learn many things from a “good” teacher, you can also learn a few things from “bad” teachers as well.
“If you get an excellent teacher, that’s great. If not, then don’t worry - for now is the opportunity for you to become excellent. For you are the best teacher you can ever have. And this is especially true for the most important subject of all – the subject of your own life. Your life is yours alone, and nobody else’s. An excellent teacher may know some of the answers to your own life – but you will have to learn most of them yourself. And no teacher, no matter how excellent they are, can ever live your life for you. In the end, both your education and your life are your own personal responsibility, and not that of any school or teacher. And while the burden of this responsibility may seem very great, the powers that you can discover as you embark on your journey are very great also.”
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