Teaching: Is it Merely a Profession?

Teaching: Is It Merely a Profession?

A Card on Teachers' Day

Whether or not teaching is merely a profession rests, to a great extent, on the annotation of the word ‘profession’. There lies an ambiguity between job and profession. A job is a job which teaching of course is and in these days, it is a lucrative one for the teachers are paid handsomely. But the word ‘profession’ demands professionalism. Here many will say that what is wrong in administering professionalism in teaching in so far as it enhances the output? But it is not only a student’s learning outcome that a teacher expects for his objective is to inculcate values in him, to make him a proper, sociable human being. And for that, he himself has to interiorize the job in his life because if a student idolizes anyone except his parents, it is his teacher. So, a teacher has to become an example by himself unlike the other professions. Those are confined. But teaching is not an end in itself. It is a profession beyond. In earlier decades, there were so many teachers who dedicated their whole lives for teaching. These days too, examples are not far to seek. They may not be highlighted but that does not affect it in any way or other. That teaching is something that surpasses mere profession is proved by the fact that still films like TARE ZAMEEN PAR is being made. So, if professionalism is a mask and your real life is your real skin, then, in case of teaching, your mask becomes your real skin for it is a life which has to be lived out thoroughly.