TEACHING AS YOUR VOCATION

Vocation comes from the latin word vocare which means to call. Based on the etymology of the word,
vocation, therefore, means a call. If there is a call, there must be a caller and someone who is called.
There must also be a response. For Christians, the Caller is God Himself. For our brother and sister
Muslims, Allah. Believers in the Supreme being will look at this voiceless call to have a vertical
dimension. For non- believers, the call is also experienced but this may viewed solely along a horizontal
dimension. It is like man calling another man, never a Superior being calling man.
From the eyes of those who believe, it was God who called you here for you to teach just as God called
Abraham, Moses and Mary of the Bible.
The fact that you are now in the College of Teacher Education signifies that you positively responded to
the call to teach, right?
May this YES response remain a YES and become even firmer through the years. Help your students
become human.
Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths and Eichmann's.
Reading, writing, arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human. From the
eyes of those who believe, it was God who called you here for you to teach just as God called
Abraham, Moses and Mary of the Bible.
YES!
The fact that you are now in the College of Teacher Education signifies that you positively responded to
the call to teach, right?
May this YES response remain a YES and become even firmer through the years.

TEACHING AS YOUR MISSION

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Teaching is also a mission. The word mission comes from the latin word misio which means to send.
You are called to be a teacher and you are sent into the world to accomplish a mission, to teach. The
Websters New Collegiate Dictionary defines mission as task assigned. You are sent to accomplish an
assigned task.

Teaching is your mission means it is the task entrusted to you in this world. If it is your assigned task
then naturally youve got to prepare yourself for it. Your four years of pre- service preparation will equip
you with the knowledge, skills and attitude to become an effective teacher.

What exactly is the mission to teach? Is it merely to teach the child the fundamental skills or basic rs of
reading, riting, rithmetic and right conduct?

To teach is to influence every child entrusted in your care to become better and happier because life
becomes more meaningful. To teach is to help the child become more human.
This is what a soldier tells his superior after he has accomplished his assigned mission.

Is to help the child master the basic skills so he/she can continue acquiring higher-level skills in order to
become a productive member of society. Is to deposit facts and other information into the "empty
minds" of students to be withdrawn during quizzes and tests. Is to facilitate the maximum development
of his/her potential not only for himself/herself but also for other.

If you are doing it only because you are paid for it, it's a job;
If you are doing it not only for the pay but also for service, it's a mission.
If you quit because your boss or colleague criticized you, it's a job;
If you keep on teaching out of love, it's a mission.
If you teach because it does not interfere with your other activities, it's a job;
If you are committed to teaching even if it means letting go of other activities, it's a mission.
If you quit because no one praises or thanks you for what you do, it's a job;
If you remain teaching even though nobody recognizes your efforts, it's a mission.
It's hard to get excited about a teaching job;
It's almost impossible not to get excited about a mission.
If our concern is success, it's a job;
If our concern is success plus faithfulness, it's a mission.
An average school is filled by teachers doing their teaching job;
A great school is filled with teachers involved in a mission of teaching.

TEACHING AS YOUR PROFESSION

The term professional is one of the most exalted in the English Language, denoting as it does,
long and arduous years of preparation, a striving for excellence, a dedication to the public interest, and
commitment to moral and ethical values. Hon. Hermogenes P. Pobre

Why does a profession require long and arduous years of preparation and a striving for excellence?
Because the end goal of a profession is service and as we have heard many times we cannot give
what we do not have. We can give more if we have more.

Code of Professional Ethics. His Holiness Pope Paul VI affirmed this thought when he said, If you take
teaching as your profession, this means that you must be willing to go through a long period of
preparation and a continuing professional development. You must strive for excellence, commit yourself
to moral, ethical and religious values and dedicate yourself to public service.

This mentality is expressed in other ways like "talagang ganyan 'yan", "wala na tayong magagawa",
all indicators of defeatism and resignation to mediocrity. If we stick to this complacent mentality,
excellence eludes us.
In the world of work whether here or abroad, only the best and the brightest make it.

If we remain true to our calling and mission as a professional teacher, we have no choice but to take
the endless and the "less traveled road" to excellence. Teaching and a life of meaning, want to give
your life a meaning? Want to live a purpose-driven life? Spend it passionately in teaching, the most
noble profession.

Teaching may not be a lucrative position. It cannot guarantee financial security. It even means investing
your personal time, energy, and resources. Sometimes it means disappointments, heartaches, and pains. But
touching the hearts of of people and opening the minds of the children can give you joy and contentment which
money could not buy.

Teaching may not be a lucrative position. It cannot guarantee financial security. It even means investing
your personal time, energy, and resources. Sometimes it means disappointments, heartaches, and pains. But
touching the hearts of people and opening the minds of children can give you joy and contentment which
money could not buy.

3.1 Teacher a role model who sets Good Example

Teachers must educate their students on the importance of selecting the appropriate company. They must
also show excellent example to the learners. It is often said that morality is fostered by good example. It is also
said that evil is fostered by bad example. There is an intuition here that children are strongly influenced by the

company they keep. There is also interjected into this discourse the idea that children can rise above their
surroundings. This is usually said to children who cannot avoid bad company, as it were. What is implicit in all
of this is the belief that a moral point of view, or lack thereof, is mediated through social influences. There is
nothing astounding here, except that teachers tend to forget the effects of normative influence.
3.2 Teacher as a counselor who offers Advise
In some working-class families, one of the influences on moral education is the television which interacts with
the children more even than do their parents or teachers (Sullivan, 1980). Though parenting plays a significant
role in the legitimation of culture, it now has a contender in television. For example, before a child reaches the
age of 20 in this country, he or she will have seen 350,000 television commercials. The average child, it is
estimated, will have seen 20,000 commercial messages each year or more than three hours of television
advertising a week (Sullivan, 1980). One might say that children keep a good deal of company with the ethos
of consumption, for television is a mirror of commodity culture (Sullivan, 1980).
When compared with parents and schools, the mass media--that is, newsprint, comics, radio, and television
are, at the same time, more anonymous and democratic. As opposed to parents, who concentrate their efforts
on their own children and possibly their neighbors', the mass media are directed to a wider range of people,
but with patently more utilitarian motives. In essence, the media are supported by modern advertising, whose
main message is to sell products as commodities to people on a large scale as the correlate of mass
production. It can be seen in some of the early advertising journals that the media were to conflict with the
family.
The socially constructed nature of television makes it more of a private event, even though the viewer-listener
is receiving communications. A morally responsible actor is not a private actor. As I have already said, a human
act is an expression which has as one of its distinguishing characteristics, significance. Significance implies
that moral action has a public nature. Besides this, television and other media perpetuate pornography and
teachers must be on the look out to warn their children against learning immoral acts from them.
3.3 Forming a Caring Environment

Character formation begins with a caring relationship, first in the home and then at school. Teachers create a
basis for children through encouraging caring relationships in schools that bridge from adult to child through
which mutual influence can occur (Chein, 1972). Any child who is being cared for will likely care for others and
will engage as a citizen in the moral life of the community. The quality of early teacher-student relationships
can have a strong influence on academic and social outcomes that persist through eighth grade (Chein, 1972).
Teaching styles that conform to dimensions of effective parenting were a significant predictor of students'
academic goals, interest in school, and mastery learning orientation. In particular, teachers who have high
expectations tend to have students who get better grades but who also pursue prosaical goals, take
responsibility, and show a commitment to mastery learning. Conversely, teachers who are harshly critical and
are perceived to be unfair have students who do not act responsibly with respect to classroom rules and
academic goals.
Caring schools and classrooms provide multiple benefits for students. Caring school climates encourage social
and emotional bonding and promote positive interpersonal experiences, providing the minimum grounding
necessary for the formation of character (Gramsci, 1971). Moreover, in schools with a strong indication of
communal organization, less student misconduct is noted (Gramsci, 1971) and rates of drug use and
delinquency are lower (Gramsci, 1971). Student attachment or bonding to school improves school motivation
(Gramsci, 1971) and discourages delinquency (Welsh, Greene, &Jenkins, 1999) and victimization of teachers
and students (Gramsci, 1971). Schools characterized by a strong sense of community report decreased
discipline problems and less drug use, delinquency, and bullying; conversely, they also report higher
attendance and improvements in academic performance (see Lapsley & Narvaez, 2006, for a review).
3.4 Developing Social and Emotional Skills
Another best practice among teachers as a way of teaching morals to children is enhancing learners social
and emotional skill development. Social and emotional skills are crucial to school success. Recent research
suggests that emotional intelligence has more bearing on life and school outcomes than does academic
intelligence (Kavanaugh, 1983) stated, social and emotional learning programs pave the way for better
academic learning. They teach children social and emotional skills that are intimately linked with cognitive

development. Social and emotional skills facilitate everyday life, affecting relationships and school
achievement-skills in communication, conflict resolution, decision making, and cooperation (Kavanaugh, 1983).
A substantial body of literature indicates that teachers employ programs that address social and emotional
competencies and which are effective in preventing problem behaviors (Taylor 1964), including drug use
(Kavanaugh, 1983) and violence (Kavanaugh, 1983). Social and emotional learning is also a strong predictor
of future children moral outcomes (Taylor 1964). One study demonstrated, for example, that indices of social
competence were better predictors of academic achievement.
3.5 Teaching for Expertise and Perfection
This is a perfect tool for teaching morals among the children that teachers call to task and should continue to.
Teaching for expertise involves direct instruction through role modeling, expert demonstration, and thinking
aloud (Sternberg, 1998), focusing attention on ethical aspects of situations and expressing the importance of
ethical behavior. It also requires indirect instruction through immersion in environments where skills and
procedures can be practiced extensively (Taylor 196).
Immersion in Examples and Opportunities (E & O), the student sees prototypes of the behavior to be learned
and begins to attend to the big picture, learning to recognize basic patterns. The teacher plunges students into
multiple, engaging activities. Students learn to recognize broad patterns in the domain (identification
knowledge). They develop gradual awareness and recognition of elements in the domain.
Attention to Facts and Skills (F & S), the student learns to focus on detail and prototypical examples, building a
knowledge base. The teacher focuses the student's attention on the elemental concepts in the domain in order
to build elaboration knowledge. Skills are gradually acquired through motivated, focused attention. In Practice
Procedures (P & P), the student learns to set goals, plan steps of problem solving, and practice skills. The
teacher coaches the student and allows the student to try out many skills and ideas throughout the domain in
order to build an understanding of how these relate and how best to solve problems in the domain (planning
knowledge). Skills are developed through practice and exploration.
Integrate Knowledge and Procedures (K & P), the student executes plans and solves problems. The student
finds numerous mentors or seeks out information to continue building concepts and skills. A gradual systematic

integration and application of skills occurs across many situations. The student learns how to take the steps in
solving complex domain problems (execution knowledge). This set of novice-to-expert levels of teaching come
in handy in modeling children morally.
3.6 Teaching Self-Regulation and Development
Teachers must ensure that their students learn to use their skills independently. Individuals can be coached not
only in skills and expertise but also in domain-specific self-efficacy and self-regulation (Chein, 1972).). The
most successful students learn to monitor the effectiveness of the strategies they use to solve problems and,
when necessary, alter their strategies for success (Taylor, 1964). According to Taylor (1964) self-regulation is
acquired in stages; these resemble the processes learning in the zone of proximal development. First, the child
vicariously induces the skill by observing a model. Secondly, the child imitates the model with assistance.
Thirdly, the child independently displays the skill under structured conditions. Finally, the child is able to use the
skill across changing situations and demands.
Teachers should understand their roles as facilitators of student self-development. Able learners have good
self-regulatory skills for learning, (Chein, 1972). Teachers have a chance to help students develop the attitudes
and skills necessary for the journey toward their future. This is true for moral character as well. As in any
domain, moral character skills must be practiced in order to be developed. Teachers must be oriented to
providing good practice opportunities for students. For example, if students do not get practice in helping
others, they are less likely to do it independently when the occasion arises (Chein, 1972).
With adult coaching, each student can monitor ethical skill development and hone a particular set of morals.
Once developed, virtues must be maintained through the selection of appropriate friends and environments
(Aristotle, 1988). Virtuous individuals are autonomous enough to monitor their behavior and choices.

In summary, the paper provides a functional view of what direction a teacher can take in deliberately fostering
moral character of the children. First, teacher educators point out the importance of establishing a respectful

and caring relationship with students, helping teachers understand and practice different ways to do this. This
is accompanied by helping teachers learn how to establish a supportive classroom climate, which is important
for achievement and ethical character development. Secondly, teachers help their students identify the ethical
skills that support academic and social success, guiding them to understand ways to use them during the
school day in academic and non-academic lessons. Thirdly, teachers must learn and instill on their children
how to cultivate expertise in students not only in their academic discipline, but also for an ethical social life.
Fourthly, in subject matter and in social life, teachers assist their learners develop techniques to help them
foster self-regulation and self-efficacy.
Student moral development is both implicit and inevitable in standard educational practice. The challenge
facing teachers and teacher educators is whether to allow moral formation to occur opportunistically-letting
students learn what they will, for good or bad, come what may-or to foster an intentional, transparent, and
deliberative approach that seriously considers the moral dimensions of teaching and schooling. Two teacher
education strategies are encouraged in schools. The minimalist strategy requires teachers to make explicit the
hidden moral education curriculum and to encourage their students to see the moral character outcomes that
are immanent to best practice moral instruction. The maximalist strategy requires that teachers learn a toolkit
of pedagogical skills that targets moral character education as an explicit curricular goal. It is important to know
that when teachers are intentional and wise in praxis, they provide students with a deliberative, positive
influence on their individual and group characters.