Newton’s waffle

In my four years of teaching, I’ve learned a lot of things from work, from my fellow teachers, and from my students. These are just twelve of them:

1. A teacher’s life is not so different from a student’s. You still have a lot of homework, reading assignments, and plenty of oral presentations.
2. If you’re already a teacher, the major differences between being a teacher and being a student are: (a) instead of just answering, you also check the exam, (b) instead of answering to just your own parents, you now answer to more parents, and (c) you’re allowance also gets deducted when you’re late for class.
3. You can never be really (100%) prepared for a batch of students no matter how much you think you know them from the previous years. Children’s behaviors and attitudes change as quickly as they grow. They can be really sweet and charming the previous year, and then be astonishingly pesky and irritating the following year.
4. No matter how tolerant you are, your patience has a limit. And it can be surprisingly short sometimes!
5. The most rewarding response for a teacher is not a thank you, but a smile, especially that which is given after a light-bulb-flashing moment of realization.
6. You can see everything when you’re in front of the class, from the tapping of the desk to the scratching of the ankles. (Just when students think it’s safe to pass notes under the table… haha!)
7. It’s not the grades that win a teacher’s heart but the effort and the determination to learn.
8. Kindness and humor are far more effective than fear and terror, well at least in the long run. (Fear and terror can be useful too but the effects are usually short-term.)
9. Friendliness and leniency is like sugar for children. Give them more than a taste and you ruin their diet.
10. Teaching is not a profession but more of a commitment. It’s far from being lucrative and even farther from being easy. It’s physically, mentally, and emotionally demanding.
11. It is not for the faint of heart. A teacher’s life is full of heartaches, disappointments, and confrontations. It takes a long time to see the fruits of your hard work and not all your effort bear fruits.
12. Teachers are the shallowest people in the world. The compensation that they get is far from being materialistic or monetary in nature. They are people who feel content with just greetings, smiles, simple answers and the softest thank yous!