How to regain enthusiasm for the teacher's vocation?

Whoever aspires to teach, at least at the beginning, feels the beat of generosity, the love for knowledge and the desire to share it, the audacity of wanting to participate in the formation of the young promises of the Nation. The person who discerns this vocational path imagines the fruits of his work, such as the growth of the students, the sowing of hope in their families, the promotion of a better country. All this, however, has been covered by a fog of doubts.

In this haze, one hears, as if in whispers, sentences that form a structure of political correctness, but that wear down the desire to teach. These sentences do not usually come from teachers who know the dynamics of the classroom, but from “experts” who comment from outside and influence legislation. For example: “It's better for students to learn on their own, don't go imposing your knowledge”. Or “Beware of meddling too much in the lives of young people: that could be invasive and authoritarian”. In short, it is a reproach that taints the legitimate aspiration for enthusiasm that any educator has, for what is the point of going out of your way to enter a classroom where no one needs you? In other words, how can you want to be a teacher if you are not allowed to practice the profession?

Daniel Mansuy explains that the origin of these misunderstandings lies in Rousseau's thinking. He explains in his book Educating among equals (IES, 2023): “Education had been understood as that instance that seeks to transmit an inheritance; and the teacher, as the depositary of something that deserved to be handed over. In Rousseau's scaffolding, the place of the teacher undergoes more than one modification. The teacher ceases to be someone who delivers something relevant, ceases to be someone who embodies a world that the student receives and appropriates, and becomes a facilitator of the learner's self-development”.

Facilitating the learner's self-development“ has a nice ring to it. And it has some truth to it. But in the extreme it is quite similar to the abandonment of homework. Thus, we leave the students so free in their ”self-learning“ that, in practice, we disregard them. They are born and grow up on their own, scattered in the fantasy of telephones, innocent before the dangers of the street, ignorant of history, fragile before dangers for which they have not been prepared. They advance in their curricula, but very few teachers stop to invite them to dream, to create, to project a display of virtues and talents.

It is time to react. Young people who feel a call to teaching do not wish to become bureaucrats of “thinking routines”, but rather think of a genuine vocation as teachers. That is, someone who shows horizons, who recognizes and enhances talents, corrects deviations and guides on the road to excellence. As the literary critic George Steiner said, with a vision that now serves as a conclusive summary: “A teacher invades, bursts in, can raze in order to clean and rebuild. Poor teaching, a pedagogical routine, a style of instruction that, consciously or not, is cynical in its merely utilitarian goals, are destructive. They uproot hope. Bad teaching is, almost literally, murderous and, metaphorically, a sin. It diminishes the pupil, it reduces to gray inanity the motive that is presented. It instills in the sensibility of the child or adult the most corrosive of acids, boredom, the methane gas of weariness” (Lecciones de los maestros, Siruela: 2020).

The teacher's vocation is fascinating. Let's see how we can recover it.