Many people seem to crave the weekend for several reasons. Even in work places, parties are thrown on Fridays and those who love to get their groove on move from one event to the other throughout the weekend. Another category uses the time to get personal things sorted out.
I grew up knowing that many use the weekends to cash in on strategic meet ups; to close business deals or meet prospective clients. Others just want to make the acquaintance of people so as to increase the value of their network.
At meetups/events, when people introduce themselves they would usually say something like 'My name is Mr/Ms......, I am into entertainment or investment banking, nice to make your acquaintance.' And courtesy demands that you return that gesture by introducing yourself as well. Even if you miss the line of mentioning what it is that you do, it does not take long for someone to pop the question 'so what do you do?'
Well, word has come to me that teachers still find it difficult to mention that they are indeed TEACHERS. Some simply lie or mention something else that they do.
It is can almost be forgiven because I have WALKED into rooms in the past where I would timidly mention that I was a teacher and the expressions were priceless (negatively).
Teachers know how they are perceived by a lot of people and would rather stay safe by hiding from who they are. The stigma attached to teachers being poor is still so strong and it has affected how we are perceived.
The narrative is changing, many teachers have broken free from the yoke of poverty ( that is a topic for another day). Better still, teachers are intelligent, creative, problem solvers, nation shapers and many more. Which of these do you fall into?
It took me a lot of thoughts to accept myself for what I had decided to do as a career, understand why I was doing it and define the mark I intended to make. By so doing, my career has become the easiest story I know to tell. Believe it or not, I now walk into gatherings with my head held up and talk about being a teacher to people in more 'lucrative' professions, hold them spell bound and begin to receive comments like 'Can we do something together?'
Someone once mentioned that if you are a teacher and all your friends are teachers, you are headed in the wrong direction.
The level of exposure you have is how far you can show your students. Take bold strides today, there's so much more to you than talking about your students to your spouse or network of teacher friends.
1- Discover yourself
2- Work on yourself
3- Use it to change your narrative.
Still wondering about how to go about this, drop a comment or visit @teachersidaraanddavid on Instagram. We love to see teachers becoming more of whom they intend to be and even beyond.
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