Born to teach?

Born to teach? 

Now there’s a question! You often hear people say, “x was born to be a teacher, they are a natural, teaching is in their blood!” Etc. Is that true though? 

For me personally, I wasn’t born to teach. In fact, I had no idea what I wanted to be until I got to sixth form and thought, “bloody hell! I need to start thinking about what I’m going to do in real life!”

I had never thought about teaching. I don’t have teachers in my family, I wasn’t in awe of all of my teachers nor did I think I could do a better job than them and want to prove it. 

Some very generous people have said to me at points in my career all those quotes I started this blog with and I’m pretty sure that I’m undeserving of them but I’ve gone on to do alright so I’ll take them!

So what is it then? When you see these really ‘gifted’ or ‘natural’ teachers, what is it that makes them this way? Is it purely the training they go through? Nah. Is it the fact they get on well with children? Can’t be. Is it having confidence? Don’t think so either.  Is it being really intelligent? Not in my case! 

Maybe it’s a combination of all these things and a few more and maybe a small part of it is hidden somewhere in your blood. 

Obviously training makes a difference. My degree was excellent. I had loads of amazing tutors and great teaching experiences. But then so did all those trainees who no longer teach as “it wasn’t for me.” 

Getting on with children helps I guess! You’ve got to have some kind of rapport with children to be a decent teacher.

Having confidence to deliver, again could play its part. Although I know some awesome teachers who aren’t confident people. 

Intelligence plays its part but some of the most intelligent people may not be great teachers and I certainly wouldn’t consider myself to be that intelligent. So scrap that one! 

I’m not actually sure I can answer my own question here. It just really interests me. Maybe, just maybe, really good teachers are sprinkled with magic fairy dust when they are born.