I was in my second year of my education degree when one of my professors often repeated one of those phrases that remain in the mind and in the heart.
Every now and then that wise man would remind us that the teaching profession could be compared in many ways to that of the farmer. "You are sowers of seeds," he would tell us whenever he had the opportunity.
That phrase kept hanging around in my head. At the age of eighteen, I didn't understand it very well. It took a long time before I could fully understand the meaning of those words.
During my first years as a teacher I had many conflicts with my superiors, we had differences of opinion about what our role as educators should be. They believed that students were a kind of containers to be filled with the contents selected by the Ministry of Education.
But I remembered the teachings of my teachers and they talked about other things. They had told me many times that the great objective of education was to liberate the spirits, especially in the youngest.
So step by step I found strategies that would bring me closer to that great objective.
One of the things I set out to do from the beginning was to exercise my students' thinking. In all my classes I invited them to think. I would present them with the corresponding content and ask them questions about it: Did it seem credible to them? If they could relate it to something in their life? Did it seem useful or useless?
With this technique, the first thing I wanted was for the children to feel that they were protagonists, that they were taken into account, that they felt they could have an opinion. To gain their confidence was essential to advance towards the level where I wanted to take them, to realize that every opinion demands responsibility and that is why they had to prepare themselves as well as possible, so that their opinion would be solid.
It was clear to me that my goal was far-reaching, that it was not easy to measure in the short time of the school year. However, I always had indications that my work was not useless. Some kids became more curious, more questioning, and even made it difficult for me by demanding explanations on subjects that were beyond my competence. Such students encouraged me to prepare myself better and to continue with the plan I had devised in my mind.
My motivation was constantly renewed by the conviction that with my work I was contributing to freeing some minds.
I listened as my colleagues complained about the boredom of being teachers and I found it hard to understand them. For me, each group of students was a different challenge. With each one I had to revise my strategies, try new methods, and that kept me away from routine and boredom. There was no single way to treat them all because each group was different from the other.
Fortunately for me, I had the good fortune to be able to work at all educational levels in my country, including the University.
Teaching adults was a bit more comfortable and allowed us to more easily confront different conceptions of life. But I liked more working with teenagers because at that stage curiosity is at its highest levels.
Every once in a while I run into someone on the street who was a student of mine. It's nice when they ask me if I am Professor Irvin. It makes me a little sad when I don't remember a face and I ask them for clues to locate me, in the end I almost always manage to remember. Many of them tell me that some word of mine stirred their thoughts, that it pointed them in a direction they hadn't thought of. Hearing such things fills me with a deep sense of pride.
For more than forty years I was active in the classroom. In all that time my conviction that I was born for it grew stronger. It is a blessing when you can say that you have found your purpose in life, being a teacher was mine and if it were my turn to repeat my life again I would have no hesitation in dedicating myself to teaching again.
If I were asked to summarize in a few words what my purpose in life has been, I would say it in just three words: "sower of seeds".
I am publishing this post motivated by the initiative proposed by my friend @ericvancewalton, Memoir Monday, in the forty seven week. For more information click on the link
Thank you for your time.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version).
Logo creado por @themanualbot