Teaching is not a bed of roses. Rather, it's much prettier than that.

         Often regarded as one of the oldest and noblest professions in the world, teaching continues to be a career choice of those who wish to help children build their potential in various aspects. As we celebrate Teachers Day on 16 May, I wish to share my humble opinions on why challenges faced by teachers are chances for them to make a difference as they cherish the bittersweet moments in their career.

         As a teacher who has been in the profession for over a decade, I believe that chances and challenges would help with the career growth of every teacher. Frankly speaking, in the early years of teaching, I perceived problems as pain that would kill my patience and passion in educating the schoolchildren. But, as time goes by, I begin to realise that everything that makes or breaks my day at work is both a chance and a challenge for me to perform better as I learn to manage my emotional well-being. Experience is truly the best teacher.

         Needless to say, teaching is more than finishing the syllabus, preparing exercises for enrichment activities and grading papers. It is the study of human characters shaped by children’s social backgrounds and their special abilities. True teachers would be intrigued by unique personalities of pupils as the process of discovering the latter’s learning styles could be an exciting adventure. Chances are teachers will be surprised and enlightened by the findings that would create an opportunity for them to expand their creativity in teaching as they wish to cater the needs of different types of learners.

         However, the challenges may be greater when dealing with demotivated, disrespectful and delinquent pupils who might be too hard to handle. In this case, teachers may need to turn the judgemental thinking into an analytical one. In fact, this is how we do justice to children with struggles we may know nothing about. Indeed, it takes a second to judge a person but it takes a special strength to stop and think. Pupils who look frazzled and uninterested may suffer from sleep deprivation because they have to work to help their poor family. Those who fail to complete their homework may need to juggle between taking care of their ailing parents or younger siblings and catching up on the lessons. Those with bad attitude may come from a broken family and live a loveless life. These cases may be never-ending problems to teachers, but this is the time they take teaching to the next level and deal with the challenges smartly and heroically by saving and helping the problematic pupils, instead of hating or punishing them. This is also how teachers apply love, respect, happiness and humanity (LR2H) in educating the children.

         Teaching is not a bed of roses. It is a room full of beautiful flowers. And, with teachers’ unconditional love for teaching and learning, it will become a home for enthusiastic educators and lifelong learners.