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When teaching is a personal vocation
Few teachers, including Yulia Sri Prihartini, 45, see the profession simply as a personal call from God
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Few teachers, including Yulia Sri Prihartini, 45, see the profession simply as a personal call from God.
Some may argue teachers are in a Catch-22 situation as they should juggle between working hard to satisfy their inner desire to enlighten their students as well as the practical needs to get a higher salary.
“God arranges everything [including money],” said Yulia, who has been teaching English for 24 years.
Yulia began her career at Kanisius Ganjuran junior high school in Bantul in 1986 and currently she is teaching at state junior high school SMP3 in Sleman, Yogyakarta.
“It doesn’t mean that I am an idealist. But, such things [like divine intervention] just happen to me,” she told participants of the seminar to commemorate the National Education Day, which fell on Sunday, at Kanisius College in Menteng, Central Jakarta.
She shared her teaching experience in her book which she co-authored, titled Sang Guru Sang Peziarah: Spiritualitas Guru Kristiani (The Teacher The Pilgrim: Spirituality of a Christian Teacher).
She said that befriending the students, was among the keys to success in teaching.
“Teachers should be close to their students and therefore help them to like their subjects and in turn motivate them to learn more,” said Yulia, who completed her master in English language in 2009.
Yulia’s co-author, Agustinus Mintara Sufiyanto, highlighted the pivotal value of spirituality in teaching.
“Spirituality is one among the most important elements in teaching. It moves our souls to teach wholeheartedly,” said Mintara, who is also a Jesuit priest and headmaster of the Kanisius junior high school.
Mintara emphasized that teachers would find it hard to help transform their students to make better life should those teachers not put their hearts into what they are teaching.
“Teaching is not merely a hobby. It is a call from God,” he said.
He also summed up that the essence of education was to make the students better persons.
A participant of the seminar, Lidwina Yuni Trika Eksi, concurred.
Lidwina said every teacher needs to struggle in their job to elevate their love of teaching to a higher plane than their preoccupation with materialism.
“Spirituality is an essential factor which has made it possible for teachers to defend their idealism,” said the teacher of an English learning institute in Tangerang, Banten.
Meanwhile, Frederick Ray Popo, a student from the Kanisius high school, hoped that teachers would keep on learning all the time.
Popo said that teachers should set an example in learning new things through their way of teaching.
“Besides, I also wish teachers to build closer relationship with students without making students lose respect for them,” he said.
