Why do we need to study and learn

Posted by teacher on January 11, 2012

Aspiring teachers spend fours year going to college to become a well-trained teacher and then as soon as they do their student teaching, some turn their backs on teaching and want to be social workers instead. I come in contact with many teachers in training who think that their number one calling in life is to dig deep into the lives and homes of their students, ostensibly, so they can better understand them to teach them, but in fact, the purpose has little to do with education.

I responded to one of my teacher prep students in the following manner when she expressed surprise and great concern for all the problems students deal with at their homes:

* You started off your post [it's an online class] with an emotional plea regarding the dire situations in which your students live. Let me remind you that of course we care for the students and their plights at home…but the best way we can help them is not to solve their home problems, but to help them learn in the very best possible way. These students know that education is the solution for many of their problems and make tremendous sacrifices to come to school.

* Also, we have to be realistic too; some students may play “woe is me” to a naive teacher…Does this mean that I am unsympathetic to the plight of many students who find their way in to public schools today? No. What it means is that I am more sympathetic with their most powerful needs and I desire to use my skill and expertise as a teacher to provide a tremendous service that is more valuable than money, food, shelter or clothing. I desire to satisfy a ravenous need that every child born with in this world. It is more urgent than hunger and thirst, more pressing than warmth or shelter. It matches and sometimes eclipses the important need to feel loved.

* I am talking about the need to learn. This is something hardwired into our physiology… and our psychology. We are by nature, learning machines. Therefore, if I am a true teacher, then that is the greatest need that I can help the student to satisfy and if I do my job correctly, I will enlarge and enhance that ravenous need to learn in each student.