Teaching, is it just teaching or is it more?

What are you really doing when you teach?

There are some disturbing statistics out there.  At a recent PD I learnt that 80% of criminals in jail have some form of dyslexia.  The cycle starts young with them playing up in class because it's preferable to be the class clown to the "stupid kid".  One domino, then another and another until playing up and breaking rules becomes a way of life.

How much heartache are you saving them if you teach them alternate ways to learn and set them on the road to success?  How much are you saving those who's wallet, or car, they stole?  Or the guy they beat up and mugged?  Or the family of the person who they hit with their car because they were speeding and showing off?

The teaching profession often gets relegated to a "middle of the road" profession.  Parents treat us with disrespect thinking we work for them and just teach their kids to read and do some maths.  The government bodies who decide what we are paid don't give us what we are worth.  This is, in some ways, understandable.  It's not right, but it's understandable.

In the grand scheme of things we often find ourselves working in a factory.  A factory designed to produce functional adults.  This is what governments want out of schools.  They are interested in a functional country, not the best interests of any given student. 

In all of this there's one person who should never buy into that.  You.

You.
Save.
Lives.

By teaching that student described above ways to cope, or any student struggling against any number of quite frightening statistics,  you save them from a life in prison.  You make the lives of everyone who their criminal activities would have effected better.  You are even literally saving lives.

Like any job that you've done for years it can be easy to get bogged down and a little disheartened.  But all it takes is one child.  That one problem student you are able to get through to and the amount of good you have done in the world is incalculable.  You will have touched such a vast number of lives in a positive way that it is unbelievable.

The next time you think you are just turning up for work and treading water?  Think about this instead.  If they paid you a million dollars a day you would be worth every penny.