“Our praises are our wages”. This quote nearly sums up the joys of teaching, a profession like no other that tradespeople, statesmen, artists, doctors, or engineers become what they are because of the practice of teaching.

A teacher reads, absorbs what he or she reads and evaluates teaching material, to be used in class, finds interest in them and most of the time find something new thoughts in the familiar. That is a joy being a teacher.

A teacher comes to school to prepare the classroom or teaching aids because he/ she wants them to be fully useful to the class eager to receive instruction. There is a joy accomplishing this small task.

Teachers like their students to be the best of whatever they want to be. They rejoice in seeing them all attend classes without anyone being absent.  There is more joy than sadness when students move up one or more notch from a grade level. And when students leave there is joy in hoping that they will be what they want to be and that life will be kind to them.

A teacher finds joy in teaching from the many tasks and experiences in school. They elate when a prized student hits a high note that she can’t even sing. Or when a stammering kid he helped delivers a poem with the incapacity to clearly speak. A coach who has more losses than wins in his team’s score card celebrates his team’s effort in another losing game because he saw them play as a true team.

Teachers find joy in teaching because they know each leaner has a potential to improve themselves. By extension, they feel that they are part of a student’s persona, a catalyst in their transformation, a factor in their emerging lives.

The joy in teaching comes from the feeling of immense power to change a student and maybe change our world for the better, one mind at a time.

By: Gemma M. Manalo , TEACHER I , BNHS