Most professionals can point to a moment in life when they consciously chose their career path. For many teachers, however, the journey into education was never part of the original dream. Ask many teachers today what they wanted to become while growing up and very few will confidently say, “I always wanted to be a teacher.”
Some dreamed of becoming doctors, pilots, lawyers, engineers, journalists or business people. Teaching sometimes appeared as a second option, a chance placement, or a profession entered by circumstance rather than intention.
Yet for some of us, teaching was not merely a career choice. It was an alignment. It was something deeply planted within us long before we understood it ourselves.
I knew I would become a teacher when I was barely ten years old. While other children spent their evenings playing hide and seek or chasing tyres along dusty village paths, I found myself gathering younger children in the neighbourhood and teaching them mathematics.
Ironically, mathematics was not even my favourite subject. But there was something fulfilling about explaining concepts to others and seeing understanding slowly light up their faces. I enjoyed the process of guiding someone from confusion to clarity.
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At that age, I did not have sophisticated language to explain it, but I now understand that teaching had already found a home inside me
My childhood was marked by a painful absence. My father passed away when I was barely nine months old. Death denied me the opportunity to know him, hear his voice, or experience the warmth of his love. Like many children who grow up without a parent, I often wondered what kind of man he was and what dreams he may have had for me.
As I grew older, my mother occasionally shared stories about him. She never spoke excessively, but the little she told me became treasures I carried in my heart. One story particularly stayed with me. She told me that my father named me after his sister, Joyce Akoth, whom he loved and admired deeply. She was a teacher in a special school for the blind. According to my mother, my father once confidently declared that I would one day become a celebrated teacher just like his sister.
At the time, those words may have sounded like an ordinary parental wish. But years later, they became prophetic.
Twenty-six years after his death, I became a teacher.
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Ironically, I cannot say that after high school I passionately desired to pursue teaching. Like many young people, I also wrestled with uncertainty about the future. But the day I enrolled for education as a course, something within me settled. It felt natural. It felt right. The more I interacted with lesson planning, classroom instruction and learners, the more I realized I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Teaching did not feel forced. It flowed effortlessly.
I could prepare lessons naturally. Standing before learners felt less like performance and more like purpose. Every classroom interaction confirmed what my younger self had unknowingly discovered while teaching neighbourhood children under trees and outside village homes: teaching was part of who I was.
Over the years, the profession has shaped me in ways no university lecture could fully explain.
Teaching has taught me patience.
Not ordinary patience, but deep human patience. The kind of patience that allows a stammering learner enough time to finish reading an essay without interruption or embarrassment.
The kind of patience that understands that every learner blooms differently. Some students grasp concepts immediately while others require repetition, reassurance, and continuous encouragement. Teaching trains one to appreciate that learning is not a race but a journey.
In a world increasingly obsessed with speed and results, teaching teaches us to slow down for humanity.
The profession has also taught me the true meaning of correction. Many people still confuse discipline with humiliation. Some believe correction means shouting, threatening, shaming, or punishing children harshly. But teaching has taught me that effective correction is rooted in dignity and understanding.
Correction is not beating children or subjecting them to meaningless punishment like washing grass one by one under the hot sun. Correction is helping learners understand consequences while preserving their self-worth. It is guiding rather than crushing. It is building rather than breaking.
A teacher quickly learns that wounded children rarely become better learners. Instead, they become fearful, withdrawn, or rebellious. Genuine education requires compassion.
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Teaching has also taught me selflessness.
There are countless moments teachers invest emotionally, mentally, and even financially in learners without expecting anything in return. Teachers celebrate students’ victories quietly. Sometimes we mentor learners who may never come back to say thank you. We support struggling students, write recommendations, buy necessities for vulnerable learners, and encourage broken spirits simply because we care.
The beauty of teaching is that its greatest rewards are often invisible.
A teacher may never fully know the impact of a single encouraging word spoken to a discouraged child. Years later, that learner may become a doctor, leader, parent, or mentor carrying fragments of wisdom received in a classroom long forgotten by others.
Teaching has equally transformed me personally. While helping learners become better people, I also became better. The classroom became my training ground for emotional intelligence, empathy, leadership, and resilience. Through interacting with different personalities and backgrounds, I learned tolerance and understanding. I learned to listen more carefully. I learned that every child carries silent battles invisible to the naked eye.
Most importantly, teaching gave me purpose beyond self.
Today, when I reflect on my journey, I no longer see teaching merely as employment. I see it as a calling woven into my life story long before I understood it. Perhaps my father saw something before I did. Perhaps destiny quietly prepared me through childhood experiences I once considered ordinary.
And though he never lived to witness it, his words came true.
I became a teacher. Not just by profession, but by identity.
By Joyce Awuor
Joyce teaches at Lily Senior School, Githurai Kimbo
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