My story of becoming a teacher

Once upon a time (for some of us..), we became teachers. We started the teaching journey with a treasure chest full of experiences, hopes and expectations – all gained from early childhood experience.

There is a moment back in those times when we decided we would be teachers. I am sure each of us lived a different story that led up to this choice, the story of how we told ourselves what we can offer back to the society and how, in our particular life situation, waited for an answer.

How come? Well, the reason is that there are endless possibilities for how this might happen.

I know that some of us are born in a family of teachers and followed the family way, or maybe we were fresh graduates and full of ideals and became the first teacher in the family. Perhaps there are those who had always been great with young children and wanted to work with them, or perhaps teaching is the only career that appealed to us. Maybe we have gone through other careers before and wanted to use that knowledge to mold our future generation.

We are also most likely influenced by the memories of those teachers who touched our lives when we were young, those who nurtured our talents and sense of curiosity, infusing us with their love for teaching.

As for myself, I became a teacher after years of industry work – both locally and abroad. It took me about nine years from my graduation to my first contract in a neighborhood school. By then I had my first kid and was enjoying fatherhood. The first encounter with students in the school made me knew I was in the right profession and the help from many of my experienced colleagues and tutors made it easier for me to make up my mind to follow this path till today.

What is your story – blog about it and ask yourself when did you know you would become a teacher or to be part of the education profession? These are the treasure chest of experiences, hopes and expectations which I speak of at the start of the blog and I am sure that that chest may still contain many surprises if and only if we are willing to look back and remember them.