by Chu Chin Kwok

Created on: May 11, 2009

To my mind, teaching is the single most important job - of all the jobs and callings I can think of - no other vocation is so vital to human existence and its intellectual and physical well-being as teaching. Additionally, teaching has been so neglected and whose value has been so under-estimated that it is time that all concerned set the record straight and restore teaching to its rightful and respectable position.

Admittedly, for a host of reasons, teaching is not the best-paid job and neither is it the most respected calling; but I hope in this article I will be able to encourage enough young people to take up this profession which is noble, challenging and ultimately satisfying.

I have therefore to be able to convince you - young readers especially - why teaching could be a fulfilling profession: why do we want to teach? And if you ask me, a retired teacher with more than 30 years of experience teaching state and private schools, why did I take up teaching not just as a career but more as a calling, I hope I will be able to provide you some answers which might become a basis for your informed choice and perhaps your later decision to join this august body of educators.

There are very many reasons why we want to teach; I list below some of the most obvious and important ones:

1. TO IMPART AND DISSEMINATE KNOWLEDGE

This is of course the primary and obvious reason why we took up teaching in the first place. Of course in the present era of easy Internet access and advanced technologies, this function of the teacher has become secondary though no less essential. Teachers of the 21st century still have to impart knowledge in their respective fields but they have to be able to organize the materials and be more selective in disseminating knowledge appropriate to the levels and interests of the students. To the uninitiated and novice learner, the Internet can be a bewildering maze of disorganized information and not all websites are useful and appropriate and one still needs the guidance of a qualified, trained and experienced teacher to help one find the required trees amidst the countless in the wood.

2. TO LEARN WHILE TEACHING AT THE SAME TIME

One of the things I discovered as a teacher is that teaching is indeed not a one-way traffic - it could not be and it should never be: while we were teaching and interacting with the students we teachers were learning too. We learned to be patient, to be enthusiastic, to be responsive and to be sympathetic ; we learned,

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