TAKE YOUR PASSION TO SCHOOL
Teachers Are Not Inferior – Tell that to yourself confidently
It pains me that many more students fail to get admission into tertiary institutions because the existing universities can simply not take the number of children who would have passed the entrance examinations. Even worse is the fact that cut off marks of certain courses are unnecessarily higher than others, hence giving students a very false impression that one profession, e.g. medicine is better than another profession, e.g. education. The innocent students are made to suffer the unjust imbalance by letting go of their lofty ambitions due to the system’s inability to create a balance across professions.
The reason courses like medicine and engineering carry soaring cut off marks isn’t so much that they require higher cerebrality than a field such as education (teaching). No they don’t. Rather, the needless imbalance in our tertiary education system has created that disparity. Every course of study requires equal level of cerebrality, except of course we still want to continue indulging our mediocrity towards excellence in everything we do as a nation. So finding yourself in education, as a teacher, does not make you inferior. What you however need to do now, is to work out a meeting point between whatever it is you have as passion and the fundamental duties of every educational institution and then again the business goals and core values of the school you find yourself teaching in. If you can bring your passion into your school, then you have broken the ice, your productive instinct will brighten up your mind will pop open. You’d cease to nurse any sentiments regarding operating at your peak even when the resources and rewards given to you are not commensurate with the tasks assigned to you. You’d suddenly see the children’s lives as far more important than what you get or do not get as salary.
It is important we understand that irrespective of what our own case may be, the truth is, as a teacher, many times, we have some passion or the other apart from teaching. That’s if we’re even passionate about teaching in the first place. So then here’s what I’m saying. You do not have to silence your aspirations and dreams as a teacher. I know you have to make ends meet and do the job you’re hired for, but you will certainly not be operating at your peak if you do not fuse that passion of yours into your daily routine as a teacher, and also to enhance the business of your employer
For most, if not every private school, one of the aims of the schools, being businesses – going concerns – is to maximize profit, because they are businesses and thanks to them, they created that employment in the first place. And where they’re not maximizing profits, they want to get some returns on their investment or at least break even and not run at a loss. Most school owners had lofty fantasies of how much returns on investment starting a school has, until they invested in it and found out it was not that easy. Most school owners are actually pushing to make sure their investments do not close shop, even if the profit is not coming in the volume they expect. I know this because I also own a private school and I have coached thousands of school owners one-on-one, I also manage several schools for their owners.
Take That School as a Platform
So until you begin to see the school as a platform for fulfilling your passion, purpose and dreams, you will not be operating at your peak and as long as you’re not operating at your peak, for whatever reason or sentiments you quote, your employers will not realize their deserved returns on investment. You may say how does this even concern me? I’m just one out of many or how much is even my pea-salary compared to the millions spent on building the school. Please don’t think that way. If every teacher thinks that way, then the school will soon close shop.
The moment you take the school as a platform for fulfilling your heart passion and purpose, the moment you get to that stage, it’s a breaking point for you. You become extra productive. A light will break forth in your countenance as you cease to make your productivity directly proportional to how much salary you’re paid. Rather you give your all not minding how much or less your take home is, because you now see that apart from the fact that the children’s enviable future need no compromise on your part, you are also fulfilling destiny.
