I really love to work as a teacher. I'm going to tell you why.
- I work with young people, their energy is amazing but some times they can be extremely tired. They live their life at 150%. My students are my battery power.
- 99,5% of the students are amazing people. I really get mad at other adults accusing them for slacker lifestyle or lazyness. You only have to take a look at their schedule to realize how their days looks like. I try to know all my students, what they like, what they do in their sparetime, where they come from and maybe even their parents. Of course I let them to know me as well. If I have a bad day, I tell. I share chosen bits of my life (without exposing myself) so they can understand that I don't stand in a closet waiting for the next day to come.
- As a result of keeping the distance short, the relationship between students and teachers at the school is very friendly yet professional. Our office has become a bit of a hangout for some students, they like to sit by the table, studying close to their teachers or have a cup of coffee in the sofa. The drawback is that we sometimes need to walk somewhere else to talk about other students.
- They learn me stuff. Sometimes we do laboratory tests that fail completely or try things I've never done and fail. From that we are all learning.
- I have amazing colleagues. Except from a very few ones most are without prestige and share their thoughts, tips and tricks. It's very far from the engineering career I had before were some older men saw me as a threat or uncanny.
- My bosses are great people. The principal is a caring person like to throw parties and put the students first.
- I work with one of my interests, chemistry. We have a lousy laboratory but I have to be inventive. The bonus classes I have is math wich I find very fun to teach.
- I beleive that I'm a good teacher because I once were one of those students who didn't get it in math, didn't have any motivation from time to time and generally had difficulties. I can say that I understand them and they know that I mean it. I never call them lazy, I tell them that I know what they are going through (with hormones, lifesituations, anxiety, stress etc). I encourage them to ask questions. I even say "Great! :-)" when they say they don't get it, because I was once a student who didn't dare to speak up in class and ask questions to the teacher.
- I have a bunch of kids that I raise but don't have to pay for. I don't have to deal with the early teen problems but I can see them growing up to adults and that's fantastic.
- I do lots of weird stuff sometimes and the content of my working bag can be mysterious. Sometimes I do silly things like in the photo above punching paper confetti for a students poster. I try to use different kinds of teaching methods and do practical and creative stuff.
So thats why you don't see me much. Time to get absorbed again.....
