Teaching is a noble profession as it is often said. I am Mnkong Emmanuel Saah a one time teacher and currently a journalist. I am a denizen of Bamenda in the north west region of Cameroon. And i believe that what a teacher earns as wage or salary is far more less when compared to the tasks involved, in the teaching/learning profession. As has been defined by many scholars and the tuki dictionary; a teacher is a person who teaches or facilitates the learning process. Meanwhile by concept, a teacher is a person who provides education for people; one who teaches or instructs. The role of a teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education.
Broadly speaking, the function of a teacher is to help students learn by imparting knowledge to them and setting up a situation in which students or pupils can learn effectively. But teachers fill a complex set of roles, which vary from one society to another and from one educational level to another.
MY DAYS AS TEACHER:
When i started teaching in the late nineteenth ninties it wasn't all about the money but my zeal to impart knowledge to the learners. But i found it much challenging as a parent, to do it much to my dream of a teaching profession. Infact there were bills i had to pay as a parent, raging from house rents, food, medication, school fees, clothing etc. And what i was paid as renumeration was too small to meet up with the pressing social demands. But these couldn't stop me from teaching, because i loved teaching and could even do it with empty stomach and related needs. My role as teacher in my first institution as a teacher in a secondary school was complex. Apart from teaching, i still held a number of administrative posts ranging from Senior Discipline master to Dean of studies; and departmental head; as sport teacher and head of language department, this was the same in every given secondary school i had to teach. The tasks were enormous, but i still had to scale through because i loved my job, and was equal to the task, even with the meagre salary that could hardly put food on the table, talkless of house rents or even school fees for the children. Infact it was so challenging for me. But i still did my work happily without grudges because i loved what i was doing. It was quite a vocation for me. After teaching in secondary schools for close to two decades. And there was need for my services in the basic education where i had to meet young learners.
MY TEACHING SERVICES AND OTHER OBLIGATIONS AT THE BASIC EDUCATION.
While at the Basic Education the teaching process became more challenging due to the ages of the learners. But with my experience, i was able to brave through, making learning more practical and full of fun, and that earned me the love of the learners who developed a particular interest to the foreign language i was teaching them. And also teaching with foreign colleagues added more fun to the teaching/learning process. Paying cognizance to the cognitive development of the learners in a society where the foreign language wasn't the first official language made me used other skills in imparting the knowledge to them. Infact an as expert i was capable of imparting knowledge that would help the learners to build, and acquire skills.
Infact teaching is a profession that more needs to be done to give a teacher the value of being an instructor in the dwindling Education System in the Countries of the world, without the exception of my Country Cameroon. I do appreciate a teacher and feel for their Situation. Much needed to be done to give the teacher their due value and renumeration. Infact when I think of my days as teacher, even now that i have become a journalist i still feel so nostalgic about the teaching profession. Working with my colleagues and learners of the noble profession.
