The Teaching Spirit That Grew with Me

Something is interesting about mirrors - they reflect without effort. That was how I felt the first time I had to teach someone. I never learned it, but just the understanding I had gathered as a student in school. I have never had to think teaching was a difficult profession because it was something borne in me, and it was just as if I came from heaven with the skill.

When others would complain how hard it is to teach children, I find it easy and without any struggle to handle them, even though they could be troublesome and want to frustrate you at some point. But it has always been fun to me regardless.

I knew teaching was part of me when I was very young and in my junior secondary school days. During holidays, I would take my younger siblings, extra lessons at home, help with their homework, give them exercises to do and mark their books. I was always eager to hold the red pen as it gave me a different kind of feeling at that time.

In those days, red pens were handled with great care, and we believed it was only teachers who should have them. So, when I had a red pen, I didn't let children take it anyhow unless I sent them to bring it for me.

It was like I was holding a precious treasure that must be treated with respect, and it always gave me joy to mark their exercises, eager for the next day when they'd submit their homework, and I never failed to use my cane on them when they refused to do their exercises.

There was a time my Dad's friend came around, and while I was there discussing something with him, he kept watching how I was using my hands to describe and analyse and even though he said something different, I knew what I wanted to become.

He said that I would be a good journalist because of how I could explain something in detail. I laughed and quickly rejected that I wanted to be something else and not a journalist, even when I didn't know what it meant. I looked up the meaning of that word, and seeing the rigorous work involved in it, I couldn't see myself taking it but doing something different.

I have never learned how to teach from anyone, nor have I attended any degree studies before I knew what it meant to be a teacher. Going for my degree studies only enhanced what has been in me already, and doing it gives me pleasure, and when I teach, it's always like I am having fun standing in front of pupils/students.

I have heard several times from friends and close relatives ask the question, "How do you find it easy to teach?" I would say that teaching is part of me, and it is not a hard thing, especially if one is passionate about it.

The people I enjoy teaching are the children from Nursery to Primary because I learn a lot from and with them. It gives me joy handling those young ones because I believe teaching the foundation is more important than those who have already grown and are in secondary school. Teaching comes naturally to me, and the fact that I can explain things in detail until you understand is something I possess, and it's a beautiful quality.

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