1. Passionate about the subject.


2. Have a desire to educate and teach.


3. Be an effective communicator.

Why does one need a passion for the subject? I believe that i've already mentioned this in my previous post. When Feynman was supposed to prepare a set of lectures for freshman on advanced topics and couldn't do it, he attributed it to not having a deep enough understanding of the topic itself. A deep understanding is necessary on the part of the educator in order to break down complicated things in to chewable, bite sized bits for the totally clueless student to better absorb. But of course, this assumes that the student is clueless not because he/she is an idiot or that he can't be bothered, but because he simply, has no knowledge of the subject being taught.

Secondly, there has to be a desire to teach. I believe there are many professors or graduates out there who do have a deep understanding, but have no desire to educate in the first place. Like my econs tutor, who just comes into the tutorial room, plops a transparency on the OHP and deosn't say a word (Though I'm not sure how deep her understanding is in the first place. But since she's an econs graduate student and I'm just doing econs as an elective , I suppose her understanding is definitely way better than mine).

Thirdly, one has to be an effective communicator. I know people who are really intelligent, but can't bring across their point properly, because they can't find the words. Sometimes, they're just plain boring, like Wong Fei Hong (though I quite like his German accent).

I guess some people simply like to educate, that's why they aspire to become teachers. But I think that's like an empty aspiration. Let's say that there's a certain guy who likes to teach. Since he's not bad at physics, he decides to become a physics teacher. So he goes to college gets a degree in physics and teaching. But how exactly does he inspire his students to like the subject? By showing them that physics is not boring, by showing them that physics is more than what is being taught within the syllabus. But how much would he know exactly since he isn't a physicist? His knowledge becomes confined to what he learnt in college, and maybe science magazines and journals if he is more interested. But the thing is, the environment he works in changes. He isn't learning physics anymore. He doesn't gain new insights, nor is he encouraged to learn. In fact, he is encouraged to remain in the syllabus because that's what gets the students their As.

I remember asking Ms Wee, my physics tutor back in JC about atomic physics, and now that I know a little more, I realise now that she was completely smoking me. Either she knows shit about what I was asking, or she didn't want to tell me because she was worried she would confuse me (even so, she could have just told me that it was higher level physics that I probably wouldn't be able to understand). I'm probably biased, because all I've ever had were shitty school teachers. But how much of a role did your teacher have to play in inspiring you to pursue your current major?

I'm not saying that we should employ Professors to teach in secondary schools. Teacher teachers are still necessary to give impart basic skills to younger students, effective or no. But that's the most I believe that they will ever be.

Maybe I'll screw up my physics degree. And maybe five years down the road you'll see me teaching physics in Serangoon Junior college. If that happened to me, I think I'll be an even crankier teacher than Ah Ber. Double whammy because firstly I didn't make it as a physicist, and second because I'm a school teacher.

At the end of the day, the point of this long rant is basically to say that if you like a subject so much you want to show people how wonderful it is, for goodness sake, do education a favour and don't join MOE as a teacher (or at least let that be the last of your options).