Teaching isn’t a calling for me. It’s a job, for at least another eight months and probably another year after that, but that’s more because I’ve got a good deal here than because I really like things.
Part of the problem is one of attitude: I expect the students to provide their own motivation; I really don’t care if the kids are reading manga under the table while I’m trying to teach; I don’t have to evaluate them and they don’t have to learn. By this point, they’ve figured that out, and it basically works out that for kids 4th grade and higher I’m a teacher; for third grade and under I’m an entertainer and babysitter.
With that said, there are moments of glory when I can understand why someone with an aptitude for it might choose this as a profession. In my last class of the day tonight, I introduced two entirely new concepts: the relation between verbs and agent nouns, and the relation between adjectives and adverbs. (An agent noun is essentially a verb defining a person: a runner, a chess player, and so forth. An adverb is formed by postpending ‘ly’ to an adjective.) These concepts are introduced simultaneously because the best way to demonstrate either one requires both: a cautious driver drives cautiously, an efficient worker works efficiently, and so forth.
This was the first time I’d done serious academic work with this class instead of (at first) focusing on practicing their English conversation without attempting to teach them anything new, or (later) introducing new material slowly, exclusively through games and activities. It was hitting them kind of hard, but there was a moment near the end of the class where suddenly it just clicked for them and suddenly they were handling everything I was throwing at them perfectly. That moment where I could see the flash of comprehension, where suddenly and immediately their English was just better, felt incredible. If I could experience it more often, it might well be addicting.
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