Snapshots of Life!

Teach....

Here's a thought: How do you define yourself?

The question is an old one, I started mulling over it when I was in junior college during my Literature classes. Good ole' Samuel Beckett who wrote some plays on existentialism, and the meaning of life. He had a very dismal outlook, as do most literary people.

I remember in elementary school...the teachers had us write an essay on "My Ambition". What was yours? My ambition at 8 years old was to be a teacher. I don't remember why I wanted to be one back then, but it might have something to do with my mother who teaches at an elementary school. I think it might also have to do with the school vacation that all teachers in the civil service enjoyed. Or maybe I thought being able to grade someone else's work, and give them Cs and Ds was better than receiving them myself.

Or it could be that I hated the dentist and evil nurses in my elementary school who would stick big needles in little kids and make them cry.

Anyway, we all must have changed what we wanted to do eventually, or the society would be over-run with policemen, firemen, teachers, and doctors. (The only known professions to children) Now my friends are consultants, Investment bankers, traders, engineers. Very few stuck on as doctors, or lawyers or even teaching. Hmm...

Like those school days, people still ask me the same question "what is your ambition in life?" Long term goals... I have to say, it's the same as it was when I was 8 years old. I love teaching...educating young minds, and shaping the way they think about the world. Introduce new perspectives, a new angle of looking at the same situation, sparking intellectual curiousity. Because that is man's gift to the world. We can't climb trees better than the monkeys, or swim faster than the fish, or fly higher than the birds. What we have to give is a thirst for knowledge, the quest to understand how the world works, brilliant thoughts and ways of looking at the world that would change the way humans live for the better. So yes, I want to be a teacher...not just any teacher but a Professor so that I can keep learning and educating the brilliant minds of the next generation. Perhaps research will help us find the answers and new ways of looking at our lives.

posted by Li'er @ 12:21 PM