There are teachers, and there are Teachers. I respect anyone who steps into a classroom, but I adore educators for whom teaching is as much a vocation as a job.
Why?
Because when Teachers go on vacation, they look at ways to exploit their adventures for students. Whether collecting foreign magazines for language class, or foreign coins for math class, or postcards for geography class, Teachers always look for inexpensive ways to make learning more interesting and relevant.
Because Teachers know that The Voice is a super power to be used wisely.
Because Teachers believe that strong coffee (or tea, or energy drinks) can substitute for sleep when they’ve stayed up until 3 am on a school night to attend an online workshop in another time zone, or to play with a new tool that just might have potential for students.
Because Teachers have Facebook friends who are half their age, and it’s not creepy. They answer homework questions from these friends until the wee hours (and again pretend that coffee, tea, or Red Bull is as good as sleep).
Because Teachers support other teachers. It’s not that Teachers are always one, big, happy, egalitarian family. There’s a hierarchy that ranges from (roughly) Ph.D. weilding professors in “real” subjects at the top, to bilingual Teachers working with children at the bottom. However, Teachers take pride in their profession, and in colleagues working to strengthen that profession, particularly when it seems that they’re the only ones who actually consider teaching to BE a profession.
Because Teachers manage to smile rather than scream when facing non-Teachers who think the “people who can’t, teach” joke is funny. Ditto for dealing with people who assume that teaching was their fall-back job.
Because Teachers turn every freakin’ thing they touch into an educational opportunity. Teachers looked at World of Warcraft and thought, this just might motivate reluctant learners. They visited Second Life and said, “Cool place to teach! Look at the potential here!” They looked at Skype and saw a way to connect their students with the world. They looked at Twitter and said, “Great way to share resources!”
Because Teachers fight passionately for education ideals–to include technology, to exclude technology, to abolish standardized tests, to improve standardized tests, to open classrooms to the world, to protect children from the world. But, at the end of the day, Teachers work to help students succeed within whatever reality they face.
Because Teachers are reading this and wondering why I’m making a fuss about the things they do every day. Because they assume that other teachers would do the same, if they were able to. Because they can’t imagine doing anything but Teach.
Happy World Teachers Day! Thank you for inspiring the world’s children.
teacher trainer, and Ed Tech Supervisor at Casa Thomas Jefferson in Brasilia. She has been using social media to explore the potential of educational technology in the classroom and beyond. Carla is part of the TESOL’s Electronic Village Online Coordinating Team and has been co-moderating the EVO online sessions to help educators develop their digital literacy and fluency. You can find Carla in Twitter 
Rob Newberry is a technology specialist at Ruamrudee International School in Bangkok, Thailand. He began his teaching career specializing in Interactive White Boards and multimedia integration, and now focuses on Web 2.0 applications in the classroom.
Steven has an MA TEFL from Birmingham University. He believes that being a teacher means a never-ending commitment to learning. “First, we must connect with our students, then expect them to grow in some way; the rest we just work out day by day.” He is an avid collaborator and is always looking for new ways to grow.
Let me explain my teaching history briefly. I became an English teacher in 1989. I worked at a Girls High School. Except for only having female students, it was just a normal high school.
Now, I am working for an academic high school. I was just transferred last year. Working in an academic school is hard because teachers are always busy and face a huge amount of pressure to cram students full of as much knowledge as we can, and then worry about the result of their exams. In my former schools students caused a lot of trouble and did not have specific reasons to learn English. But I could teach anything I wanted to suit the students’ levels and preferences. I didn’t have to reach a certain fixed standard. I just set each attainable goals and got there moderately. When I first started teaching at an academic high school, I didn’t feel like I had enough experience or skill because teachers were required to follow a rigid syllabus in order to help students attain a level high enough to pass very difficult college entrance exams, irrespective of their abilities, motivation or interests. So, in order improve my teaching ability, I observed most of the other teachers’ classes and I also visited classes at other academic high schools. Even so, I felt like my efforts were not enough. I needed to know more about many kinds of effective teaching skills. Finally, I made up my mind to learn at International University in Japan. That is where I am now studying.
only thing we had was an old cassette player that kept breaking down.
Anita Kwiatkowski holds a M.A. in English Philology from the University of Gdansk, Poland. She has been teaching kids and adults in Poland since 2001 and in 2007 she moved to Turkey. During the week she does her best teaching young learners. At the weekends she performs her duties as a Cambridge ESOL oral examiner, runs workshops for teachers or travels. She is a huge fan of Pedro Almodovar, loves face painting and sometimes indulges in Indian cuisine.
Years later I found myself in Laos teaching English to children. Again with a coursebook in my hands and my bag full of activities and now with even some years of experience, but all the same, I found myself helpless. Many will say that if you are a teacher you can teach both adults and young learners, but I disagree.
On the 23rd of September I started as a Year 2 teacher in a public school in a small town in Extremadura. I teach English (two hours a week) as well as other subjects to the Year 2 students and also 2 English classes of half an hour a week to students of 4 years old. My new challenge was set.
