Teaching is supposed to improve the person being taught, not the teacher, right? Well, in my case, I realized that teaching not only gets me to help others, it also gets me to help myself. Now, you may be wondering how and why teaching improves the person who is doing the teaching and not just the student. Let me explain.
There are many ways how being a mentor can improve you as a person. Here are some of the things I noticed:
- It helps me view things from another perspective – when you teach, you don’t just talk, talk, talk. You also listen and get the viewpoint of other people. Ever hear of the phrase “two minds are better than one”? Well, when you teach, you get to tap into the minds of more than one person (depending on how many people you are teaching). This gives you a lot of different perspectives and helps you view what you are teaching from a lot of different angles.
- It helps me to learn more – teaching is actually a two-way street, you teach and you learn. “Docendo discimus.” By teaching, we learn. This is a statement by Roman philosopher Seneca, which says that when we teach, we also learn. There is no limit to what we get to learn, especially while we are teaching. This is because of the feedback I get from the students I teach. When students ask questions and I have to clarify, I either dig deep into my wealth of knowledge to answer, or I acknowledge that the question never popped up before and I will get back to them with the answer. This makes me search for information on the question, which in turn gives me additional knowledge.
- It makes me search for more things to teach – not all classes are the same. Some are pretty advanced and learn quickly, which can leave you with a few hours or days that are left over from your supposed teaching plan. What do you do when this happens? You search for other topics that can be useful to your students, and this means you have to do some research to give them more things to learn. This also teaches you not only how to expand your teaching modules but also how to adjust to different kinds of students, and what kinds of topics they might be interested in.
- It helps me stretch my patience – it is not just about academic learning, after all. Teaching also exposes you to a variety of personalities, some of which you will not be compatible with. You can’t just clash with the person you don’t agree with, especially not when you are the teacher and they are the student. Your role is to share with them what you know and if some don’t learn as fast as others, or some question everything you teach, it can rub you the wrong way. You need to be more patient with such individuals, and I have learned to do that with my teaching gigs.
- It shows me that there is a huge world out there – having been raised in a city that is basically a small community (almost everyone you know is in the same circles), being able to visit and view other communities and see how they operate, communicate, interact, and basically live their lives, gives me a lot of insight on how big and diverse the world really is. It shows me that there is a world outside my own corner of the world, and that there are people there who will benefit from my knowledge, and I can benefit from them as well.
Teaching opens your eyes to a whole different world, and when you keep at it, you learn more. You refine your techniques, you add to your repertoire, you subtract from it as well, and you improve yourself in many ways. This is why I continue to teach, even when it takes a lot away from me (like my social life, my sleep, and sometimes, my sanity). I do love what I do though, and I see myself continuing on this path for years to come.
