Teaching is more than imparting knowledge, it is inspiring change. Learning is more than absorbing facts – it is acquiring understanding. For centuries and centuries, the one constant fact of life is that teaching has played a crucial way in the way we learn and is absolutely essential. Whether it is in a nursery school, a school, a university or an MBA college; teaching in different manners helps us to inculcate activities, and habits and even memorise textbooks for exams.
In today’s time and age, teaching does not just entail ONLY TEACHING! It goes beyond that to counselling students, mentoring students, and teaching them how to use and apply knowledge in their everyday lives. The role of teachers is known to impact students on different levels and inspire them to do more for themselves.
Confucius is known to be the world’s first teacher, a private tutor who taught history. While teachers have mainly been males in the predominant past, females also played a prominent role in this profession. While initially there were one-room schools in the middle and nineteenth centuries, schoolmasters have been local farmers, tavern keepers or any person with interest in gainful employment.
Being a noble profession, teaching is a profession where the general and main role is to teach the students; but it also includes being able to motivate students and boost their confidence to take up things that can help them in their lives. Complex and difficult topics can be explained through fun activities so that students can understand things better.
Not only is the teaching skill important but also the matter knowledge, personality, methods of imparting information, etc. It is important for teachers to create nurturing bonds with students so that they can approach teachers whenever needed.
Having taught at many Business schools such as Guru Nanak Institute of Management Studies, KC Management, Welingkar Institute of Management, SIES College and Kohinoor Business School; I have also spoken on various subjects for Icon Business Forum, 91 Springboard, Probano, Aditya Birla World Academy and David Sassoon Library (Limits Make Things Too Small).
A lot of hard work goes into the teaching profession which is very often overlooked. You Cannot just turn up at a University without having your notes, PowerPoint presentations or lecture absolutely ready. How will you teach the students if you, yourself are not ready with extensive knowledge about the subject that you are teaching? You have to do extensive research on the topic or have personal knowledge. You have to have your homework assignments ready as well. Besides this, conducting exams for the students is of key importance as well as correcting their answer papers. How can you be a teacher if you don’t know the criteria for marking assignments as well?
Managing students is also one of the key aspects of teaching because no matter how much you prepare on the topic you have to also know how to manage your audience, whether it’s three students or twenty or more.
It takes a lot of self-discipline to be able to discipline students. As a teacher, you have to set an example to your students how to conduct yourself.
