Why I teach
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
I’m very honored to be here speaking to you all about why I teach. We are all teachers here, and I wonder if you’ve ever asked yourself the question, “ Why do I teach?”
“Why do I teach?” I ask myself the same question time and again.Certainly I don't teach because it is easy for me. Teaching is the most difficult job there is. For me, teaching is a red-eye, sweaty-palm, sinking-stomach profession. Red-eye, because I never feel ready to teach no matter how late I stay up preparing. Sweaty-palm, because I'm always nervous before I enter the classroom, sure that I will be exposed for the fool that I am. Sinking-stomach, because I leave the classroom an hour later convinced that I was even more boring than usual.
Why, then, do I teach？
I teach because teaching is a profession built on change. When the material is the same, I change – and more importantly, my students change.
I teach because I like the freedom to make my own mistakes, to learn my own lessons, to inspire myself and my students. As a teacher, I'm my own boss, and every year I return to my work with fresh ideas and a new sense of purpose.
I teach because I like to ask questions that students must struggle to answer. The world is filled with too many easy answers to bad questions.
I have left out, however, the most important reasons why I teach.
One is Jian Jun. He was a shy little boy from a poor family. One day I noticed that he used his paper twice. Once with a pencil, then with a pen. I guess he didn’t have enough money to buy more paper. As a teacher, I can offer him my help easily. But he was very sensitive. How could I help him without letting him feel embarrassed? After class I asked him to my office. He was a bit nervous. First I gave him my suggestions on his writing. Then I handed him a pile of white paper. “ By the way, I have too much paper here. I can’t use them up. Could you please do me a favor to use them up?” He looked at my smiling face, a bit surprised, and then relaxed and happy, “ Yes, of course.” He helped me use the paper for three years till his graduation.
Jian Jun is working in the Central Sea Oil Company now. Every Teacher’s Day and every New Year’s Day, he may give me a phone call to send me his best wishes. I just offered him a little help, but to him, it was love and care deep as a well.
Another reason is Oscar. He was clever but usually absent-minded. One day in class, I found him not listening to me carefully as usual. I walked to his desk. He was reading a story book attentively. Once he saw me, he gave me the book. Should I criticize him? Should I be angry and start to give the students moral lessons? I continued my lesson as if nothing happened. After class, I wrote a sentence on the bookmark and gave the book back to him with a smile on my face. The sentence said, “ Youth is a book which is very hasty.”
As I myself like reading very much, the next day, I gave my students a book list and I suggested them to read more books in their spare time.
Later, he came into my office, stood in front of me, bowed to me deeply, with tears in his eyes, and then left without saying anything. But I did feel the change in him ever after.
From them,my first students, I realized that the best way of teaching is love and wisdom, rather than showing anger or criticism. We may meet some students that are not so clever and not so lovely. Some of them even give us a headache. But love and wisdom do wonders.
These are the real reasons I teach, these people who grow and change in front of me like living sculptures. Being a teacher is being present at the creation, when the person in the clay begins to take shape.
A so-called "promotion" out of teaching would give me money and power. But I am already rich because I get paid to do what I enjoy: reading, talking with people, and asking questions like, “What is the point of being rich?”
I also have power; the power to nudge, to point out a pathway, to help mold a human being. It is the power to change a young person’s life for the better. What other power matters？
I teach because teaching offers something beyond money and power: it offers love. This is not only the love of learning and ideas, but also the love that a teacher feels when those students walk into the classroom and begin to change in front of my eyes. Perhaps love is the wrong word: magic might be better.
I teach because, being around people who are just beginning to change, I often find myself changing along with them. There is no rule which says a teacher cannot learn from her students. I teach because even though the content stays the same, the students are always surprising me with new lessons.
Thank you.
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