Lesson 2
Teaching as a Vocation and
Mission
Learning Outcome
• Explain teaching as a vocation and mission
Activity: Let’s Discuss (5 minutes discussions with the group, 5
minutes presentation of each group)
Instruction: Group yourselves by 5 then discuss your answers to these
questions:
1. When a mother says, “I think my son has a vocation,” what does
she mean?
2. A soldier reports and says “Mission accomplished.” What does this
imply? What does he mean?
3. Some teachers regard teaching as just a job. Other see it as their
mission. What’s the difference?
Teaching: Mission and/or Job?
Job;
If you are doing it only because you are paid for it, it's a
Mission
If you are doing it not only for the pay but also for service, it's a ;
Job;
If you quit because your boss or colleague criticized you, it's a
Mission;
If you keep on teaching out of love, it's a Job;
If you teach because it does not interfere with your other activities, it's a Mission;
If you are committed to teaching even if it means letting go of other activities, it'sJob;a
If you quit because no one praises or thanks you for what you do, it's a Mission;
If you remain teaching even though nobody recognizes your efforts, Job; it's a
It's hard to get excited about a teaching it’s a Mission;
Job; a
It's almost impossible not to get excited about
If our concern is success, it's a Mission;
If your concern is success plus faithfulness, it's a Job;
Mission of teaching.
An average school is filled by teachers doing their teaching
Analysis: Let’s Ponder on These
1. What is meant by Vocation? Mission?
2. Are these two (vocation and mission) related?
3. Teaching as a job or a mission. What’s the difference?
Vocation
• a strong feeling of suitability for a particular career or occupation.
• a person's employment or main occupation, especially regarded as particularly
worthy and requiring great dedication.
Mission
• An important assignment
• a specific task with which a person is charged
Teaching as a 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.
Vocation includes other big callings like marriage and single blessedness. It
does not only refer to a religious vocation. It can also refer to a call to do
something like to teach, to heal the sick, etc. Whatever is our calling or station in
life, the call is always to serve.
The Christians among you realize that the Bible is full of
stories of men and women who were called by God to do something
not for themselves but for others. We know of Abraham, the first one
called by God, to become the father of a great nation, the nation of
God’s chosen people. We recall Moses who was called while in
Egypt to lead God’s chosen people out of Egypt in order to free them
from slavery.
In the New Testament, we know of Mary who was also called
by God to become the mother of the Saviour, Jesus Christ. In Islam,
we are familiar with Muhammad, the last of the prophets to be called
by Allah, to spread the teachings of Allah. All of them responded
positively to God’s call. Buddha must have also heard the call to
abandon his royal life in order to seek the answer to the problem on
From the eyes of those who believe, it was God who called you
to teach, just as God called Abraham, Moses, Mary of the Bible.
Among so many, you were called to teach. Like you, these biblical
figures did not also understand the events surrounding their call. But in
their great faith, they answered YES. Mary said, “Behold the
handmade of the Lord. Be it done to me according to your word”.
The fact that you are now in College of Teacher Education
signifies that you said YES to the call to teach. Perhaps you never
dreamt to become a teacher! But here you are now preparing to
become one!
Teaching must be your vocation, your calling. May this YES
response remain a YES and become even firmer through the years.
Teaching as a Mission
Teaching is also a mission. The word mission comes from the Latin word
“mission” which means “to send”. The Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary
defines mission as “task assigned”. You are sent to accomplish an assigned task.
The phrase “mission accomplished” from the soldier in the activity phase
of this lesson suggests that you were sent to do an assigned task, a mission and so
if you faithfully accomplish the assigned task, you proclaim “mission
accomplished.”
You responded to the call to be a teacher and so your mission in the world
is to teach, the task entrusted to you in this world. These are how vocation and
mission are related. You were called for a purpose, i.e. to accomplish a mission
while on Earth which is to teach.
If it is your assigned task then naturally you’ve got to prepare yourself
for it. From now on you cannot take your studies for granted! Your four
years of pre-service preparation will equip you with the knowledge, skills
and attitude to become an effective teacher. However, never commit the
mistake of culminating your mission preparation at the end of the four-year
pre-service education.
You have embarked in a mission that calls for a continuing
professional development. As the saying goes “once a teacher, forever a
student.”
Flowing from your uniqueness, you are expected to contribute to the
betterment of this world in your own unique way. Your unique and most
significant contribution to the humanization of life on earth is in the field for
which you are prepared – teaching.
Question: What exactly is the mission to teach?
• Is it merely to teach the child the fundamental skills or basic r’s of reading,
‘riting, ‘rithmetic and right conduct?
• Is it to help the child master the basic skills so he/she continue acquiring higher-
level skills in order to become a productive member of the society?
• Is it to deposit facts and other information into the “empty minds” of students to
be withdrawn during quizzes and tests?
• Or is it to “midwife” the birth of ideas latent in the minds of the students?
• Is it to facilitate the maximum development of his/her potential not only for
himself/herself but also for others?
• Or Is it to help the child become “the man of culture and of expertise?”
• Or is it “to provide opportunities for the child’s growth and to remove hampering
influences?
To teach is to do all of these and more! 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.
Teaching is indeed your mission:
- If you are doing it not only for the pay but also for the service,
- If you keep on teaching out of love, it’s a mission.
- If you are committed to teaching even if it means letting go of other activities,
- If you remain teaching even though nobody recognizes your efforts, it makes you
get excited
- If your concern is success plus faithfulness, it’s a mission.
Application: Let’s Apply What We Learned
(The Humanizing Mission of Teaching)
Read this letter given by a private school principal to her teachers on the first day of a new school
year. It may make your humanizing mission in teaching crystal clear.
Dear Teachers,
I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness:
- Gas chambers built by learned engineers.
- Children poisoned by educated physicians.
- Infants killed by trained nurses.
- Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates.
So I am suspicious of education.
My request is: Help your students become human.
Your efforts must never produce learned monsters,
skilled psychopaths, and Eichmanns.
reading, writing, arithmetic are important only if they
serve to make our children more human.