Day 3: What I love about teaching.

What I love the most about teaching.


Fortunately today's prompt is a little more inspiring than yesterday's and easier to answer. The two things I love most about being a teacher are " the unpredictability and the endless possibilities". 
    When I tell people I am a language teacher, the comment I often get is: "That must be nice for you, all those holidays." Then they quickly change the topic of the conversation. I see them think: what could possible be interesting about a bunch of (pre-)adolescents in a room, mangling a foreign language? Being a lawyer, a CEO, a doctor, a journalist, how exciting! But a teacher?
     Still I wouldn't trade my job for another one, ever. In a way teaching is one of the most unpredictable and exciting jobs you can get. Anything can happen in my class, adolescents are in a constant state of change and no day is the same. I can plan a great lesson and it can bomb, and when I feel disappointed I will suddenly get a great lesson out of a pop song, without any effort at all.

      Even when I am having a bad day, I know it won't last long. One of my students will cheer me up with something before the first class is even underway. My students present me every day with the endless possibilities we all have. Grownups tend to forget that in life "anything is possible". Dreams and hopes often get shelved in favour of security and comfort, but adolescents stil see the world as malleable. They believe that they have influence over their future and they make me question everything I do, simply by suggesting alternatives I had never even considered.
     I love sharing my passion for languages with them, because I feel it impacts their way of seeing the world. A different language offers them yet another way of thinking and feeling. Through my teaching I expand their world, just as they expand mine through their questioning. What I love most about teaching is learning to accept the unpredictability of life and being reintroduced to the endless possibilities this life has to offer to all of us every day.

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