The Creation of a Teacher

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!”