Last night. Stella and I had one of our nightly chats on the phone. As we were talking, the topic shifted to individuals who have chosen to head into the teaching career as a means of either tying through a difficult financial rut, or beacuse practically speaking, the money is good. As a student who is doing a specialization that is extremely close to pedagogy in general, it is sometimes hard not to have ideals and to refrain from judging. Us, the group who believe that something can be done for the new generation, us, the group who belive in the joy of the creation and sharing of knowledge, sometimes find it hard to find justification for carrying on in the face of the possibly impassionate lot. If a good number of the industry does not believe in the same ideals, would you be seen as one of them by joining it?

I personally think that at this point, it has to come from within. What I mean by that is that we need to have some confidence – or you can call it ego – to believe that you aren’t like the rest, and that your resulting performance will be different from the rest as a manifestation of this self belief. No, I don’t think it’s self delusion. If it is, you would find out in a while (and the good thing about waking up from self delusion is that you’ll grow from it most of the time). I consider this priming yourself to do better, pushing yourself to do the best that you can humanly achieve as a person, and sometimes this willpower can make the difference. This time, it’s not really about you, but about those you are going to be responsible for.