Why I Am a Teacher

Few people would think of having a second job. I never imagined it, but here I am, rushing every Monday and Wednesday after work hours to go to my second job. I have been teaching at the college level for three years now. Although I always feel exhausted and stressed, I keep coming back term after term...

When I was asked two years ago in a faculty event why I love teaching, my response was actually "Well, I'm not really sure if I love teaching". I was being honest. There were actually a lot of things not to love about it especially if you are already a working professional. When I started teaching, I was already head of a division in a company. I had a very lean staff and we always had to work under a lot of pressure. In addition to that, I have to attend a lot of management meetings. By the end of the day, I was usually exhausted. The commute to the university also took an hour.

When I get to school, I'm also pressured in terms of time because the university has so-called checkers to make sure that teachers are in class on time. It used to really bother me. Not only that, some students would not be really interested in what I had to say! Worse, I had to prepare lecture materials, prepare and check exams, grade research papers, etc. I had a lot of reasons to actually hate it.

However, I think what keeps me coming back are the students who have actually valued what they learned from me. A lot of my students dream of being their own bosses and they all understand and appreciate that learning about Finance is key to being an entrepreneur. They understand that the numbers are important in selecting a business they would like to start and most especially in running the business itself. I think of myself as a "mentor" to these future managers and entrepreneurs. Hopefully I can inspire them to be good managers and business owners.

I start my Finance class with current events reporting. Through this, I try to approach Finance in a practical way, how Finance works in the real world. The students report on developments in the national economy, major corporations and the business environment in general. We try to engage in discussions especially on how these developments affect our country. We have had a lot of discussions about the peso-dollar exchange rate, the call center and business process outsourcing boom, the property boom, etc.

Thinking back to when I was a university student myself, I realize that being in the corporate world helped me become a good teacher. Because I have the experience, I am able to discern the relevant learnings and I am also able to share a lot of stories about corporates, financial institutions and the financial markets. I am also teaching my students how to use the financial calculator and Microsoft Excel in doing their calculations, something that was not taught to me when I was a student.

Teaching also strengthened my communication skills. I am forced to explain concepts in a simple manner so the students can easily grasp them.

There are really a lot of things I enjoy about teaching. As to the things I hate about teaching, I have slowly adjusted to them (if students have their own private discussions, I ask them to step out of the class). Besides, I don't think I can survive all the pressures in the office without this distraction . Teaching is my own form of therapy.