Why do I like teaching?

It was 9 PM in a residential school. All class 8th students were sitting in their classroom waiting for their new chemistry teacher to arrive, while they should have been in their dorm preparing to sleep. The school had failed them, they had to find their own new teacher who could help them and so they did, a class 9th student who was good at Chemistry. I was that class 9th chemistry “expert”. That was my first time teaching a whole class and I experienced excitement and nervousness at the same time.

In the last 5 years, I have taught many students from different classes and various settings as a guest lecturer, tuition teacher, home tutor and any opportunity I got to teach. Teaching is something I would like to keep doing for most of my life. I developed a love for teaching very early in my life. Probably because when I understand something I find joy in sharing it making others see the beauty of it.

Even though I was lucky enough to go to schools and colleges while most of them from my village couldn’t, our schools didn’t do a good job bringing in good teachers and completing the chapters. Most of the Physics and Mathematics chapters were never taught in my 10th grade. This taught me how to learn on my own and those are the exact 2 subjects I have been teaching for a few years now. This lack of good teachers and struggling to learn Trigonometry, Electricity, and magnetism without any support made me realise how important the role of a teacher is in one’s life.

Teaching has also taught me how people behave, think and react. Everyone learns uniquely, making sure that most of the students understand is a challenging and motivating problem. Time flies while I am teaching. Every time a student understands what I am trying to explain, I can see it in their eyes that they have understood it and that is happiness to me.

I like an engaging class with a lot of questions and discussions, I mean who doesn’t? But I also realise that those students who are not interested, they like it or not they are forced to sit in the class are the ones needing help the most. As Richard P. Feynman said

“Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough”

I find the subjects I teach very interesting and just to understand them in itself is joy. If I can bring that curiosity in students to wonder why? and ask how? That’s when I have succeeded as a teacher. This challenge, excitement, and curiosity is what makes me smile every time I walk into the classroom.

[I originally wrote this in 2020 now adding it to my Substack.]