WARNING! This website is no longer actively maintained. It is an archive of 2 years work by Doug Belshaw who now blogs at dougbelshaw.com...
I really enjoyed teaching today. So I feel I need to post to counter-balance yesterday’s rather negative post (5 reasons why I’m not looking forward to school tomorrow). Here’s 5 reasons I’ve come across today as to why teaching doesn’t even feel like a job.
1. Teaching is a vocation
Of course, the main reason teaching doesn’t feel like a job is because it’s a vocation. It’s something that I do that I happen to get paid for. That doesn’t mean it’s not without its frustrations and downsides. Of course not. But I certainly don’t teach for the money. And that’s a sentiment shared with a lot of teachers - even those with a cynical exterior!
Just look at the number of teachers who care enough to blog about their experiences, to connect to other teachers, to go out of their way and help students. That’s the type of profession of which I’m proud to be a part! 
2. I learn something new every day
Children have a tendency to see things differently, to ask why? a lot more than adults. I find that refreshing. I can’t afford to become stale if I want to be relevant to today’s learners!
I find new perspectives and ways of approaching old problems. No two lessons, even if the same resources used and the students are in the same year, are ever the same. Questions are asked, links made and pennies dropped… 
3. The classroom is my domain
Yes, I try to be as much of a co-learner as possible, try to encourage students to take responsibility for and an active role in their own learning, but at the end of the day it’s my classroom. I like that. I try to create an environment built on smart risk-taking, a place where students aren’t afraid of being ridiculed for thinking out loud. That environment consists of more than just the material - it’s an ecology that actually spreads beyond the four walls of the classroom. Teaching and learning are about interactions.
4. I can be me
Well, I can be an enlarged version of me. That is to say, whatever charactistics you have, they tend to come out even more when teaching. So my students would probably say I’m enthusiastic but a bit scatty. And that’s fine by me… 
5. I get to play with technology
I know I whinge on about the school network and about some supposedly ‘digitally native’ students not getting it, but I love the fact I get to use technology for a useful purpose. Although access to the latest hardware has been somewhat lacking in my current school, that doesn’t preclude me from using tools such as web applications that might have appeared as recently as yesterday.
I’m all for experimenting, as long as it has a pedagogical basis. The students seem to react quite well to it too!
(photos: IMG_8118, n(n+1) and Little Professor Hand-held calculator, all @ Flickr)
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I think we love teaching because we love learning. It doesn't matter whether we are learning protagonists or witnesses. The process is fascinating.
It is the process what we are probably involved with and committed to. Now schools have to show visible results in a given span of time. Whether learning has happened or not. If students did not have the time to discover, well, tell them the answers. Sadly.
Luckily, once you step into a classroom everything that matters is still there. Magic.