Teachers Spreading Hope: Motivating younger people to teach

By Aurora Panganiban Ciron, Teacher 1

Ragay Science and Math Oriented High School

Would you recommend a profession in education to a young person you cared about?

I’ve discovered over the years that teaching is so much more than just “a person whose job it is to teach students certain subjects,” despite the fact that this is how many people describe teachers. Everything I think a teacher ought to do is included in the quotation above. It is the responsibility of a teacher to instill hope in their students in addition to imparting the knowledge necessary for success. As one scholar put it, “A good teacher can inspire hope.” By demonstrating to their students that they can accomplish anything they set their minds to, teachers give them hope.

Most people these days wouldn’t. The structural problems in education are just too big to ignore any longer. A recipe for disaster: overworked counselors, supervisors who are under pressure, and support personnel who are exhausted. And it’s getting the better of us. It has taken time for this massive problem in education to develop, and in certain locations, it would still be simple to act as though everything is well. However, it will eventually reach a tipping point where we will be unable to ignore how American education is being destroyed. As it is, there aren’t enough instructors in the country; more teachers are quitting their jobs on a daily basis, and teaching programs are closing due to a lack of enrollment. I recently argued that education has turned into a poisonous workplace at many institutions. Overwork, underappreciation, rising demands with falling resources, constant stress, and—perhaps surprisingly—a dearth of worthwhile professional development opportunities are the main causes of the toxicity in education. No matter how hard you try, you can never overcome toxicity.

We all don’t want a young person we love to pursue a career that will make them a failure. Why, then, are people applying for this position still? Most people who work in education do so because they wish to change the world. They want to meet these kids where they are and open the doors of learning for them, and they also want to positively impact the next generation. In the same way that they were motivated, they hope to inspire students. Despite knowing how difficult teaching is and having heard the statistics, they are determined to follow their goal. Thus, they act. They put in a lot of effort, attend classes, and graduate with a degree. After completing their student teaching, they could move to pursue employment. They enter the classroom at last, brimming with optimism and idealism. Everything should proceed as they have been instructed, but that isn’t how it actually happens. It makes sense that many of them would want to escape the poisonous, win-lose position they find themselves in as soon as possible. Education can still be a hazardous work environment.

More, in my opinion, has to be done to discourage people from pursuing careers in teaching. Young people need to be given compelling reasons to pursue careers in education. First, there are four things we must all realize about the nature of our work.

Teachers can’t do everything. Teachers who remain have a lot more responsibility than when they left, which raises the likelihood of burnout and departure. While I don’t have all the answers, I refer to this vicious loop as “killing the survivors.” Nevertheless, we need to recognize the issue and try to find solutions.

We give teachers the mental bandwidth they need to give their all to their students by clearing their plates of things that aren’t contributing to their learning.

Mental Health must be a prioritized for teachers. I can’t recall a period when teachers were the main focus of education policy creation. The majority of the time, educational policy is formulated with students’ needs in mind, which typically means that teachers are expected to shoulder additional responsibility in order to ensure that kids succeed. Sadly, this ignores the reality that when teachers are having difficulty, students cannot succeed.

Teachers are worth to pay well. As was already said, one major factor making teaching an unappealing job choice is poor compensation, but it’s not the only one. Teachers believe that society as a whole does not value their profession, hence the issue goes beyond money.

A teacher’s role is to teach their students how to be creative both within and outside of the classroom. A skilled teacher can spark the imagination. For young students, creativity is really crucial. Educating children to think critically is more important to us as educators than simply imparting knowledge so they can memorize it for the next test. Instead of focusing on memory, teachers should help pupils develop their ability to think critically and come up with original answers to questions.

The amount that society appreciates teachers determines how much they should be paid. The brutally honest reality that teachers experience on an emotional and financial level really can’t be avoided.

Healthy Teachers gives positive impact to students. We need to foster an environment that supports teachers’ success if we want children to achieve. If we want to revive the education field as a desirable place to work, these four insights are essential.

In the business sector, organizations with poisonous work environments eventually fail if they don’t make significant changes. But when our educational system is poisonous, it will ultimately cost us all—students included. Even though it’s too big to fail, it still has the potential to. Every day, it has the potential to fail our communities, educators, administrators, counselors, and eventually all of us.

Increasing the number of persons entering the field will help address the staffing shortage in education. And we have to help the ones we already have in order to do that.

In general, education aims to mold our pupils into the most admirable people they can be. Two of the greatest methods to monitor learning, in my opinion, are by employing creativity and teaching from experience. Every kid has the capacity to learn and the right to receive instruction. We must ensure that we are showing our students respect and consideration. As educators, we must never forget that we are forming the minds of the future.