A Curious Girl: The kind of teacher I want to be...

I want to be the kind of teacher who loves her pupils like a kind of extended family. She wants the best for them, she tells them good stories, she gives them her all when teaching.

I want to be the kind of teacher who makes her pupils so relaxed they don't notice they're learning.

I want to be the kind of teacher who gains respect not for her strictness or for a kind of materialistic bribery such as giving out sweets or making sure they have the most comfortable classroom, but for her knowledge and power to impart this to them.

I want to be the kind of teacher who encourages, not the teacher laughed at in future years because she failed to recognise talent. I want perception of all my pupils' good points.

I want to be the kind of teacher who does not care whether her pupils like her, but gives her lessons regardless.

I want to be the kind of teacher who teaches children and not subjects.

I want to be the kind of teacher who makes a child proud to be in their school.

I want to be the kind of teacher who is proud to be in her job, because she recognises its importance and does not abuse the position.

I suppose I'd better tell you why I suddenly switched from 'doctor' to 'teacher'. Well... not so sudden. But I'll give you the story.

Once upon a time there was a girl named Helen. This girl didn't know much about the internet, surprising as this is, but she was only twelve years old. And her mother was a single parent who had had the occasional boyfriend. Her latest one was in his forties, fun, embarrassing, but nice. He had been a Biology teacher, and now tutored as well as trading computer bits and stuff like that. That's how they met. The mother needed a new modem, or the old one fixed.

Anyway, the mother married the boyfriend, and Helen was happy because she loved him like a father, and he wasn't a disappointment, like her original father, whom she had never met, or the one in Ramsgate who had broken off an engagement claiming they were too young or something, and better than the one she nicknamed 'Hamster' because although he was nice he wasn't a father at all.

Skip a few months. The new father had taught in schools, but hated it. He passed his hatred on to his children. Don't ever teach. Teaching's good but the hassle isn't worth it.

Helen took this message on board. She, among other things, wanted to become a missionary, and (skip a year or two) saw a video in which medical people and teachers worked in Africa, in a rich community that attracted her. She couldn't become a teacher, too much hassle, but she had the brains to become a doctor. She bore that in mind for a while.

Doctors' characters impressed her. They were steadfast people, self-sacrificing and she thought about it.

Skip a year.

She heard a newly qualified doctor talk, and was drawn in. She could do this job. Yes, she could be content now, she had a job she could do.

She went on a summer camp and was a squad leader. She had great fun with her squad, who were a great bunch, and someone told her while she was there that she was a 'gentle leader' who did not lose her temper with them. That was good, she thought. A career with the children she loved. She had the medicine - paediatrics!

She went back to school full of hopes. She built up an ambition and an apparent obsession with medicine. She'd been told you had to really want to do it, so she tried to want to do it all she could.

She had uncertain moments. She didn't feel dedicated enough.

She went on a week's work experience at her old primary school just to revisit the building that held so many memories. She wrote a small diary of the week, and two interesting things were written in it - "I'LL NEVER BE A TEACHER!!!" after a stressful sports day and "Still, I quite enjoyed teaching them stuff, like handspans. I must be mad." And then later "I quite enjoyed helping them out and using my rusting initiative." And "Teaching kids is really rewarding." But, fight the feeling, Helen! You're vaguely certain that you're headed to be a paediatrician. And besides, those children are bitchy during sports days. They think they know everything.

Helen eventually abandoned medicine, although she kept up her hospital work for a bit. She liked helping the people but she thought the job of a doctor was too cold, just illnesses and little opportunity to help people as they are. She didn't like the job of nurse either, because it was stressful and although she wasn't squeamish, she wanted to work with children, and she wanted to treat people not diseases (sound familiar?)

She was still hassled about not wanting to do medicine. Before she found out that he was a psychotic spiritualist, she did some Jungian soul searching in a psychology lesson. (That's in Chapter III, can't remember where) She asked her wise spirit if she should be a doctor. He laughed his head off.

She remembered what her cousin had said, "If you can do anything other than medicine, do that." She respected her cousin greatly and tried to bear her advice in mind.

Her sister was going to be a primary school teacher. Their Dad hadn't been impressed but she was doing it anyway. Helen had thought over the thing herself and was even known to say, "I think I'd enjoy being a teacher." But as it was out of the question, she never went further. Don't be ridiculous, Helen.

She had been feeling low when she started reading the book Chicken Soup for the Soul and read a touching story by a teacher entitled "All the good things". At a former pupil's funeral, the others who were in her class reminisce over an exercise the teacher had made them do - write down the best thing you could possibly say about each member of the class. She then gave each pupil their own personal list of good things about them. Each treasured it.

"I'd like to do that," Helen thought, and something came into the light.

"I'd like to be a teacher."

She laughed. It was utterly ridiculous that she had rejected it for long when she knew it was something she had always wanted to do. Maybe it was short-sighted of her to do the profession she had spent most time watching. Maybe she's refusing to grow up. Maybe she should be a doctor after all. What do you think?

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