Teaching

I really liked David Hansen's analysis of why teaching should be considered a vocation and it has been for me.

Teaching as a vocation compromises a form of public service to others that at the same time provides the individual a sense of identity and personal fulfillment.
David Hansen, The Call to Teach

• A job is an activity that provides sustenance or survival.  It comprises highly repetitive tasks that are not defined and developed by those performing them.
• Vocation goes well beyond sustenance and survival; it guarantees personal autonomy and personal significance.
• Work may ensure personal autonomy and can therefore yield genuine meaning but, unlike vocation, it need not imply being of service to others.
• A career describes a long-term involvement in a particular activity but differs from vocation in similar ways that job and work do, that is, it need not provide personal fulfillment, a sense of identity, nor a public service.
• An occupation is an endeavor harboured within a society;s economic, social, and political system, but persons can have occupations that do not entail a sense of calling in the same way vocations do.
• A profession broadens the idea of an occupation by emphasizing the expertise and the social contribution that persons in an occupation render to society.  However, profession differs from vocation in two important ways.  First, persons can conduct themselves professionally but not regard the work as a calling, and can derive their sense of identity and personal fulfillment elsewhere.  Second, perks such as public recognition and rewards normally associated with professions run counter to personal and moral dimensions of vocations.

The teacher - a manager, mentor, controller, counselor, artist, architect, scientist, psychologist, sage on the stage and guide on the side.

From passive technicians to reflective practitioners and transformative intellectuals.