I want to react today about the profession of teacher, such a beautiful trade …
Each trade requires specific gifts and talents. And that of a teacher requires certain indispensable qualities such as patience, aptitude for self-questioning, management of a group, but also benevolence, respect, and above all humility or acceptance that the learner can excel !
However, it also requires an indispensable quality which is the ability to discern instantly what is in imbalance, which requires a correction.
Being patient, for example, means being able to repeat, and to repeat, even reformulate, to facilitate and enable the student’s understanding. Being benevolent means being understanding and indulgent, but it does not mean being a kind of “yes man”. I have participated in many internships in my life until today, and I would have never agreed to pay several hundred of € for a few days to a trainer who would not have had the courage to show me my mistakes, to be acceptable, by simple “cronyism”, for fear of hurting my susceptibility or having to confront.
Because a trainer is there to move his students forward, and as error is an integral part of the learning process, he is obliged at a certain moment, to express himself on this ground. Keeping silent, or telling someone who comes to learn that he is doing things right when it is not the case, is to mock him, it is to deceive him !
Nowadays, unfortunately, I too often see people who turn into a “trainer”, in ALL professional circles, because they think that their experience in a trade or a practice is sufficient, or because they see a way to round off their month ends, because they are trying to copy another person, because they have experienced a setback in their professional life … and so on. It is not a simple “training number” issued by an administration serving only to list, which makes the quality of a teacher !
Our students deserve the best, and certainly a teacher who has the courage to show them where they have done wrong and how to do better next time to progress, with the aim, if they wish, to achieve excellence.