Teacher Smoketh

This is an excerpt from my school essay on Psychology and Philosophy of Teaching.  Deadline was 12 midnight, started at 1144 pm, with no edits, no read backs, no corrections.  Cramming at its finest. And yes, i was able to submit with with 6 more minutes to go!

Teaching: An Art, or a Science?

Why I Became A Teacher

How do I choose what to teach and how do I do it?

When I look back and try to understand what made be become a teacher, it is all a blur.  However, I can trace teaching as far back to my great grand parents on both sides.  My maternal grandfather was a school superintendent who travelled across the Philippines.  My paternal grandfather was a teacher in the UP College of Medicine, as were all his children.  I believe that it is part of our blood, as my sister and I are teachers.  However, I think that my mother was a very important influence to me.   Though not a professional teacher, she would go into imparting knowledge in such a step-by-step and systematic manner daily from our youth that it was what I grew up with.

Early on, I believed that teaching was more of an Art.  Besides, no one formally taught me how to teach, but I saw myself doing it in different situations as I was growing up: teaching music to my classmates in song fests, encouraging my classmates who were lagging behind in quarterly exams, tutoring kids from public schools when I was in high school.  In these settings, I often got feedback that I always made it easier for them to understand things.  This is largely in part because of my persistence. 

The more I did it, the more natural it became to me.  As such, after college, I taught in my high school as a second year science teacher even without any subjects in education.  However, after a year, I found myself going into medicine.  I always reasoned out that I could teach anywhere, even as a doctor.  However, if I gave my life to teaching as a profession early, then I would not be able to become a doctor.  This became a passion in my life.

With the two vocations, teaching and medicine, merging into each other, I realized that the two were very similar.  As such, I believe that my heart was into teaching.  However, after completing my clinical training, I found it necessary to learn more about how to impart what I have learned in medicine.  Upon entering graduate school, I was pleasantly surprised and challenged that teaching is also a science.  There is a system to everything: test making, curriculum planning!  All the things I did before in a whim had a system.  As such, I conclude that teaching is a combination of an art and a science.  I have grown so slowly into it that I know teaching will always be an integral part of my life.  And I enjoy it!