Who is a teacher?

• Do you have questions that bother you? 
• Questions that churn your thinking and make you want to have the answers? 
• Or do you spend your day venting your frustration in the staff-room?

QUESTIONS IN PREPARATION

To be a teacher is to be a person whose ‘pot is always boiling’ so to speak, someone who is full of questions and curiosity. Curiosity for answers drives me.

1. What is your compulsion? What leads you to teaching?

Broadly, the questions that have been my driving force are as follows:

1. What is Mathematics, and what is the role it has played in the history of humankind?

2. How does one ‘prepare’ for a class?

3. What is my goal and where am I headed?

4. How does one teach out of silence?

5. What are the latest in education in the Western countries?

6. Is it necessary for everyone to excel in Math? If yes, then how much?

7. Am I right for this student?

8. Am I in the right profession?

9. What is unique about this child?

10. What is a good work culture?

11. Was it acceptable to shout in the class?

The questions are endless. Their source is the daily interactions in the school with students and colleagues. A sense of discomfort gives the road map. Once one starts following the discomfort, it generally leads to the answer.

• Think about each question asked above. Are these your questions too?
• If not, what are your questions?
• Are you looking for answers?

What lies behind all this questioning and churning is the need (again) to find the way that works for the child/children in our charge. Then every successful class becomes a benchmark and every failure increases the quest. Preparation for work of this nature is always at two levels: personal and professional. However, it would be difficult to separate the points involved in each as they are interlinked.

Personal growth affects professional growth and vice versa.

Mathe-Magician, my Book