Power to the People

I was not really going to talk about my job, I had a whole different subject in mind but something came up. So here we go.

Sometimes my students fondly (I hope, at least) call me Darth Vader. It’s because I wear black and appear kind of scary when I sneak up on them when they least expect it, they explain. But there’s more to it. There’s the power too.

In my position as teacher I have huge amounts of power invested in me. I decide what we do, when we do it, for how long we do it. If it pleases me we could spend an entire school year studying adverbials and how to use them. If I choose I could decide that some students have privileges others do not have, and some might have duties others don’t have.

In short, I could be as corrupt as I please, because I have the power to decide who passes and who don’t. I do. And all my colleagues do too.

Therefore one of the most important characteristics in a teacher is humbleness.

I must humbly remind myself that even though I know things the students need to learn, they know vast amounts of things I don’t know the least about. They have done things, seen things, and experienced things that I cannot even dream about.

I must, at all times, remember that I work for the students. They are not there for me, I am there for them. I must constantly remind myself that the fact that I have the power means that I have the power to share it with them, and they have the ability to handle it.