The Creation of a Teacher
Lorelyn F. Biadno
A good story goes like
this…
The Good Lord was creating teachers. It was
His sixth day of 'overtime' and He knew that this was a tremendous
responsibility for teachers would touch the lives of so many impressionable
young children. An angel appeared to Him and said, "You are taking a
long time to figure this one out."
"Yes,"
said the Lord," but have you read the specs on this order?" (http://www.dltk-kids.com/school/poem-creation.htm)
I have
lifted this from DLTK Kids, a good source of various activities from the
Internet. If a teacher is made-to-order, then I guess it is really important to
have its specs enumerated. But what is really the making of a teacher? Or maybe
a follow- up question would be, “Are great teachers made? Or maybe they are
born?”
This celebration of World
Teachers’ Day, October 5, we are one with the whole world in rejoicing and
thanking God for teachers who are His instruments in molding the youth. In this
special day, we acknowledge the crucial role,
loyal service and dedicated commitment of teachers in developing
globally-minded citizens, nurturing families, strengthening communities and
building the nation. In this special day, we might also ask ourselves
“What is the making of a GOOD teacher?”
If teachers are treated as
computers, then we would ask for specs that would be centered on the operating
system, memory and processor.
The operating system is a group of computer programs that coordinates all the
activities among computer hardware devices. Likened to a computer, a teacher
must be a coordinator, a facilitator of all the learning processes which take
place within the four corners of the classroom. As an operating system, a
teacher must have good, reliable, accurate, data storage and filing
system. An operating system must be in
good working condition. Similarly, a teacher must be of good disposition and
standing. ‘less, the OS bugs down due to security flaws. But come to think of
it, since an operating system is created by human programmers then it is bound
to have errors. Teachers are but humans. We might think of them as infallible.
But they are just humans bound to make mistakes. Sometimes they have difficulty
booting on as they also get tired. Sometimes, teachers slow down because they
are susceptible to viruses, diseases, stress, and the like. Sometimes, they
have poor performance because of their own “system” flaws. Yes, teachers are
not computers after all. Nonetheless, teachers’ indomitable spirit to teach
remains and this is what sets them apart from computers.
Again, likened to a
computer, a teacher must have a good running memory. 8 Gigabyte is an excellent
Random Access memory (RAM) of a computer. 4-6 Gigabyte is recommended. 1
Gigabyte is quite low. In South Korea, if a person is called 1GB, this is quite
an insult. So a teacher must not only have 1GB as he/ she will be dubbed as
super slow. Since a teacher is a supplier of knowledge, he/she is expected to
have a good functioning RAM. Did you know humans have RAM? Yes, it is the short
term memory. Interestingly,
short-term memory is usually associated with a very specific region of the
brain called the hippocampus. Short-term memory is the memory you will use to recall
immediate actions (like the series of words you are actually reading). And
teachers have good short term memory. It is where they store the misdemeanors
of their students. And so, they easily forgive as they easily forget. Teachers
are humans. They have the heart to pardon their students’ misbehaviors. Thanks
to their RAM.
And then of course, just
like a computer, a teacher must have a good processor.
A computer processor, also known
as a microprocessor or central processing unit (CPU), is a component in a
computer system that functions as the brains of a computer. It is mainly
responsible for processing instructions of a computer program and carrying out
computer operations. The teacher is
endowed with his/ her natural cognitive ability responsible for assimilating
and processing information, plus her affective and psychomotor skills. You will
be surprised to find out that a teacher’s skill and ability may be multiple.
And really none like a computer. A computer cannot sing and dance while
teaching. A computer cannot perform drama to catch students’ attention. A
computer is just a thing and a teacher is a human person, gifted with so many
potentials.
You might
say, what’s with these nonsense ICT jargons? Oh, well, all I really want to
point out is that the real making of a good teacher is not like a computer at
all. A computer is devoid of feelings while a teacher is not. A computer bugs
down but it cannot be hurt while a teacher would really feel the happiness and
pains for his/ her students. A computer’s specs is purely for technical use.
While a teacher’s qualification may come as wide and broad as daylight but
would boil down to having a HEART…
The making
of a real teacher is only a PURE heart.
Pure heart to care.
Pure heart to love.
Pure heart to make a difference in the lives of his/ her
students.
The making of a teacher is to be LIFESAVER not a
LIFE-WRECKER.
With all
these musings, I end “Happy World’s teachers’ Day! Mabuhay!”
