The Teacher and Teaching

Something that I really found interesting is that when we speak of people teaching a subject such as math or chemistry we are separating the knowledge or content from the activity or teaching according to Donald Freeman.


This really caught my attention, because I never thought teaching in that way. We can view the activity of teaching as merely experience and not knowledge! But it is Knowledge, that we obtain through our professional preparation, from our personal learning on how to handle a group of students in the classroom. In our day-by-day.


But now we can talk about what involves to be a Teacher. And for Hansen involves these six meanings:


A job, vocation, work, a career, an occupation and a profession.


I think it is a job because derived of this activity we get a sustenance. Involves vocation because we need to have an attitude of service and a sense of personal fulfillment. Involves a career because we have to study and to invest time as a teacher. Is an occupation because we work as a teacher and we have the activity of teaching. And finally is a profession because we study in order to be a certified teacher and we know how to teach; and is too a profession because of our social contribution to the school we work on.


What can we say about teaching?


The aim of teaching is to create the conditions that allow the students to learn in a short time if possible. But we must to be aware that teaching does not automatically lead to learning; we can find obstacles that we have to take in consideration and to decide whether we need to go deep in the lesson or if we need to give extra activities to the students in order to make clear a concept or part of speech.