When we enter any educational institution, what do we see as
our goal? I’m not taking kindergarden or even school into account, since we’re
not old enough to see further than our noses when we enter them, but, let’s
say, college, or a university. While drifting in a sea of vague ideas of
getting a degree and, therefore, a better job later on, we often forget the
main reason: to learn.
Naturally, the process is complicated – it’s not like you
can get a knowledge injection and become clever all of a sudden. It takes time
and effort. And great teachers. The problem is, these days, they are more and
more difficult to come by. What we mainly see are
people who are there to test you - and nothing more.
Those latter ones spend most of their time praising star students who don’t
seem to have any problem digesting new information for one simple reason: it’s
not new to them. They already knew that. It doesn’t matter, why – they were
more interested in the subject earlier on, they have parents who work in this
sphere, etc. The point is: they didn’t acquire their knowledge at this
particular institution. They got it somewhere else, thanks to someone else’s
teaching talent.
Others, who weren’t so lucky, get treated as if they were
horribly lazy – it’s constantly pointed o
ut to them that they should work
harder to achieve the same results as their higher-achieving colleagues. Would
that it were true, but that hard work doesn’t give them anything, because they
are working according to YOUR system, while the star students got the same knowledge,
using SOMEBODY ELSE’s system, one that might be much more effective than yours.
So, what’s the point of slaving under the system that
doesn’t work? And why does it seem like you have to know everything when you
enter a university in order to get any praise at all? And, furthermore, what’s
the point of entering the said university, if you already KNOW ALL THAT STUFF?
Seriously? If we aren’t allowed to make mistakes and NOT know t
hings, then why
do we need you?
We don’t. We could just self-educate ourselves at home
without being humiliated every time we come to class, and pass our exams at the
end of the given period of time. No teachers required. Although, honestly, I
wouldn’t call them teachers, because that profession is noble, and I know a few
wonderful representatives who carry the title proudly. The ones I’m mad at
should be called ‘testers’, because testing other people’s progress is all they
do.
And that’s infuriating, because their snobbish attitude and
lack of genuine knowledge can actually ruin lives. Because of them, many
students give up working on their talents, afraid that they may not be gifted
enough to succeed. It’s terrible, and it’s one of the reasons why I will never
teach. You HAVE to have a gift for that. You need to feel in in your gut that
what you really love to do is HELP PEOPLE LEARN. Not assess the knowledge they
already have, but give them something new to know.
If you’re a teacher, but you don’t feel that urge in your
every bone…just stop. Don’t ruin lives.
So sad…I can’t function properly, can’t even write. I just
want to sit here and feel sorry for myself. So much is going on, and I don’t
feel like being cheerful. I feel like curling up into a ball and thinking weak,
pathetic thoughts, may be crying a little. Most people I know would say that it
wasn’t like me to behave like this, but, at the given moment of time, I don’t
care.
