Where do teachers come from?

Why do people become teachers? And they remain them, despite a huge number of very real demotivating factors, including accusations of service and permanent injury from the broad parental masses?

Almost half a century ago, I resolved this issue for myself. And not at all in favor of the teacher's profession. Being a very well -read teenager (already swallowing the book of Main Rida, Fenimore Cooper, Vladimir Obruchev, Mikhail Prishvin, Jules Verne, Jack London and others), I personally saw myself in the near future, a harsh geologist. So, you know, in Kirsz boots overgrown with a beard and, of course, with a backpack behind his back and a hammer on a long handle at the ready.

Alas, nothing came out with the Geological Department of Moscow State University: the vision even then left much to be desired, so I had to act at the Geographical and Biological Faculty of MGPI, the benefit of the Department of Geology and Geochemistry Landscape there was there. However, the main line of life has not changed, so at this department I got a job right from the first year. And he continued to do this almost all student years. And many more than after it, including military service and work in the Russian and Central Councils on Tourism and Excursions, until these organizations ordered to live long, but I myself did not come across a difficult choice: what, in fact, do next? By that time, my paths were far parted with geology, but family duties were noticeably increased, including, of course, financial.

I had an experience at school by that time, although small - about four years, just between the army and work in the Federal State Enterprise on Tourism. The diploma of the geography teacher also had, as well as a decent number of vacancies in Moscow schools. So it remained just to make a decision - to return to school and work, which I did. Actually, from this time, since 1989, that my teacher's biography should be counted. The previous four-year period does not count-at the same time I was not worth a while, as a teacher was not.

The long -term introduction turned out to be long. If it is shorter than it, it will turn out like this: I was not going to become a teacher and became not by the vocation or command of the heart, but because life was so.

Life was completely right. I received incredibly interesting work in combination with the urgent need to constantly study, work and retrain in order to maintain a professional level and at the same time comply with the expectations and needs of my students. The latter is especially important, because due to age, they themselves, as a rule, are not able to formulate their needs, but what is proposed by parents, they do not carry away children completely ...

The modern school, in comparison with the Sovetskaya school, is, perhaps, only 2 rubles for the number of criticisms in its address. 20 kopecks. and current achievements in the field of space development. According to a very common opinion in society, the main factor that determines its distress is the fundamental difference between the current teacher’s corps and the blessed memory of the Soviet. The Soviet teacher was an ascetic who came to school by vocation, who dreamed about it from childhood and indifferent to the material side of life and their own interests. He replaced the teacher-teacher and, more recently, a teacher-an employee of the service sector.

More precisely, some amazing hybrid arose: a teacher is an official-bugrian, fully dependent on the employer-state, and at the same time he is an employee of the service sector, obliged to implicitly fulfill all the whims of the customer, regardless of his own views on pedagogy as such and the problems of a particular child. And besides, it is also capricious, hysterical, constantly dissatisfied with his salary and the need to justify it under the vigilant control of the supervisory authorities.

By default, it is believed that without this control the teacher will instantly stop working and will be hacking and loosening, deceiving both the employee and parents. And of course, he is a completely unprincipled person, the main culprit and performer of mass falsifications in the election of any level ...

Over the decades of work at school, I have formed, of course, a fairly extensive circle of professional acquaintances, and not only narrow -subject ones. The subject is not so important - the motivation that prompted a person to become a teacher and to remain, despite the inevitably accompanying this lack of money, family problems, round -the -clock employment and other difficulties, including an extremely low social prestige of the profession.

If we follow the “theory of calling”, the older -generation teachers fell into the school exclusively for this reason, and therefore worked remarkably, regardless of life, political and other circumstances. The current young colleagues who have replaced them for natural reasons, for the most part, do not have this very calling, and become teachers mainly due to the accessibility of the profession. Contests in pedagogical unions, in comparison with other, ridiculous, requirements for applicants are frivolous, and subsequent employment is guaranteed, since teachers are chronically lacking. Which is not surprising, given the aforementioned, related aspects of life.

As I asked the question, I phoned several colleagues of different ages and pedagogical experience, and then took it and launched all this into Facebook. He formulated his question simply: what exactly brought a person to the teacher? And even offered the answer options. Well, so that the one who wishes to answer did not have to spend time on formulations. Only four options, including many shades.

1. I dreamed (dreamed) since childhood;
2. There were no other options;
3. Family tradition;
4. Accidentally; So life has developed.

For a day, completely unexpectedly received more than a hundred answers. Many, as proposed, are simply in the form of the option number, and others are quite detailed, with a description of the causes and circumstances of the professional choice. And what answers! I will not name the surnames, but I ask you to believe the word: in the teacher's environment they are not only well known, but they enjoy complete and unconditional respect, and quite deservedly. Yes, and informed parents on these surnames "peck" immediately, like a fish for a prey spinning.

Along with the masters, mainly the age range of 50–70 years, the question-question responded, and in many students, now the same teachers of modern generation, at the age of 25–40 years. Their pedagogical experience is small and was already developed in the conditions of post -Soviet Russia, but the results of the work are impressive and forced to recall their own, very modest, successes at the beginning of the teacher's career.

The result, I admit, was very surprised. Regardless of the age category, pedagogical experience, as well as the presence or absence of honorary titles, about three quarters of the responding colleagues were in the profession by chance. Including the majority of well -deserved older teachers and young colleagues, winners of the Teacher of the Year contest. Someone is not even by accident, but contrary to children's ideas about their own future. Here is the answer of the teacher of the “middle” generation, the age range 30-50: “ Mom was my teacher and class teacher, so I knew the wrong side of school life. School is what I never wanted. My answer is 4. ” What did not prevent the teacher’s daughter from becoming an excellent teacher-explosor in the future.

Along the way, motivational factors were discovered, not provided for by my short list. For example, a person goes to a pedagogical institute after his beloved girl/ beloved guy. Or another interesting option: it was so unlucky with teachers at school that the student (student) decides to grow up and do this work as it should. “ I had such unpleasant teachers at school that we were going to go to the teachers to show them how to show them as it should .” Not a single case, alas.

And one respondent generally admitted that he was "taken weakly." The schoolboy, fond of journalism, criticized the school in which he studied. The director said that it was much to criticize all, and no one is going to go to school. A schoolboy, in the future a wonderful history teacher, said: "And I will go!" And went. And most importantly, he stayed at school.

Pedagogy, in general, is an unsafe lesson. In answers, oral and written, the word "drags out" was repeatedly sounded. For the first time, I heard this word in the application to pedagogy from a former student. This extraordinary guy received a diploma of a completely respected technical university, demonstrated it to his parents - and went to study theatrical art. That he, now the artist of one of the most popular theaters in Moscow, was wonderful. But this did not end. A few years ago we met him in the lobby of that very theater, over a cup of coffee. And then a former schoolboy, a certified engineer and a successful theater actor said that he came up with a school of stage skills open to everyone. I remember, I asked how he, in his lyceum past, is by no means a favorite of many teachers, feels like a teacher. And then this word sounded - "pulling." And dragged on. You will not suddenly get to school, there are no end to those who wish, and its creator and leader found himself as a teacher, which no one expected from him, including me.

And there were plenty of such “prolonged”, neither in childhood, nor in his youth about teaching work. A person goes to a pedagogical institution with a firm intention to never work at school (like me), and his life still leads there. It happens, however, vice versa. A certified economist, IT specialist or engineer-technologist, with a decent salary and a career prospect, suddenly discovers that he is actually a teacher. I just did not know about it until life turned in the right direction. For example, suddenly depriving him of this salary due to bankruptcy of the enterprise. Or even just quietly slipping the opportunity to try yourself in the teacher’s field, which, as it turns out later, is addicting. And that's it, there is no back road.

It turned out that teaching to a certain extent is a self -reproducing profession. In the answers of young teachers, not once or two were sounded: in choosing a profession, an example of their own teachers played a decisive role. As a rule, this factor was already triggered in high school, unlike the opposite - extremely unsuccessful communication with teachers in elementary school. One of these answers: “ Well, everything is simple for me: I studied at the lyceum and, looking at my teachers, thought:“ How cool is it! I want it too! ” ".

In third place in the number of answers was the “family tradition”: there are five out of hundreds of people, and one of the respondents counts this tradition from the beginning of the last century. “ I, as you understand, have an option No. 3. Seven generations of teachers are somehow obligated ... And there was also an idea: finally to finish what the two previous generations failed, -Geofac! "

Well, quite often, two, or even three were indicated as motivating factors. For example, as follows: “ 3 + 4, the participation in the Kommunarsky traffic in high school really affected. They worked a lot with children, held role -playing games. Almost in the 10th grade I decided to go to ped . ” The teacher from the same October star was a wonderful option: they were involved, one way or another, all four main factors!

But what about the calling and children's dreams? Also, of course, they happen. That's just less often. One gets the impression that these dreams in elementary school disappear under the influence of harsh school reality in the person, mainly the same teachers who wanted to show how to work with children.

What ultimately happened? But it turned out interesting. It turns out that the role of calling in our profession is not so great. I would say that the matter is not at all in him. Of course, it is very convenient for society to adhere to this stereotype, since it allows you to get the maximum result with minimal costs. You can not pay the teacher, the teachers can be cut and insulted - he will not leave school anywhere, because he does not think of himself in any other role. And that the results of the teacher’s work are often not impressive is an additional basis for keeping it in the role of a low -paid employee of the service sector and a meleless executor of bossie will. In all the failures and failures of educational reforms, only teachers themselves turn out to be guilty.

I repeat: colleagues who considered it possible to answer me are not just teachers, but for the most part a professional elite, the dream of any school, regardless of age and experience. And at the same time, they were not by vocation, but due to life circumstances. It’s just that these are people who do not know how to work poorly and formally, and if life has identified them in the teacher, they do this work as they would do, there is a different life, any other - wisely, heart and enormous knowledge that constantly replenish.

Any of them can be imagined by a wonderful doctor or an excellent economist, talented engineer or high -level programmer. Life just ordered. Well, a little that Louis Armstrong once said: “Good jazz is one in which there is it. In the bad - this is not. "

Leonid Perlov,
Teacher, Honorary Worker of General Education of the Russian Federation (Moscow)