The Impact of Teaching

"The average American will meet ten-thousand people in their lifetime. Ten-thousand people - that's a lot of folks; but if every one of you changed the lives of just ten people, and each one of those people changed the lives of another ten people, and another ten, then in five generations, a hundred and twenty-five years, the class of 2014 will have changed the lives of eight-hundred million people. Think about it. Over twice the population of the United States. Go one more generation, and you can change the entire population of the world."

This is a large concept to grasp, that so little people can affect so many others. It applies not only to America, but also to the rest of the world that the average human will meet around ten-thousand people in their lifetime. And just like negative aspects, so too can the positive circulate around the Earth's population.

One form of circulating positivity is the path that I am currently taking: the path towards teaching. A teacher is no longer just an authoritative figure; not only a parent, nor just a guardian, rather an agent of change. A teacher has the ability to throw one's world upside down in a matter of words. The phrase 'you learn something new every day' is used constantly in an educative environment and it is threaded into the learning atmosphere almost subliminally. Though some students do not wish to be there, they, without a doubt, will be learning things in the entirety of their day. And these things are not necessarily only based on the curriculum, but they can be things associated with every day life.

I am estimating that there are around six hundred students currently undertaking the Bachelor of Education at my university - in total, despite how many years they are into it. And I am estimating that since we will graduate as teachers, that we will be exposed to more people than the average person, thus I will up the average number of ten-thousand to twenty-thousand people. With those calculations at hand, that means that collectively, all of the people currently studying the Bachelor of Education will, in their lifetimes, impact the lives of around twelve million individuals. That is just over half the population of Australia.

The power of education is incredible. Though he does not refer to it directly, Admiral William H. McRaven in the above video encapsulates in the first couple of minutes of his speech just how powerful the impact of one cohort truly is. Prior to that moment, I guarantee the graduating students of the University of Texas did not know just how big they are in such a small world. 

And then I got to thinking; I recently just completed a unit called Rethinking Australian Studies, which ultimately was taught by non-stereotypical looking Aboriginal people who brought forth to our class the need to break free from the stereotyping and tokenising of all Aboriginal people, and brought into light the atrocities committed at the time of European settlement in Australia. The unit went much deeper than that, though, much deeper than the mere 'Sorry Speech' Kevin Rudd delivered - it required us, the students, to choose something to protest for or against, in terms of pro-Aboriginal rights. 

I initially was uncomfortable about the entire idea. I was frightened that the Police would give me a bad record for having to physically take photographs of myself with my protest poster in a public place, and I was worried that I would the get the message caught up and whatnot. Everything, though, turned out fine. In my class I met dozens of new people who I made an impact on with my poster art, I made an impact on my lecturer and two teachers, and made an impact on the people in the city that day who gawked at me standing with my group and our protest signs in front of the Parliament steps. 

And it has made such a difference in my life. There is an uncountable amount of strangers who I probably impacted on with my poster alone, that I have not yet met, yet they count on the people that I have actively changed. Every reaction we obtained would have then caused a chain reaction - those strangers would have gone home, gone to the pub, gone to work, gone to a fitness class and they would have told their friends or family members or co-workers about what they witnessed in the city, who later would have told their friends, family members or co-workers. It is an ongoing reaction. Imagine all the impact everyone would make if more people took a stand for various aspects of social justice. 

And that is the beauty of teaching. Not only are teachers the only teachers, but so are the students. I learn so much from going on pre-service teaching placement. I learn from the staff I meet, the fellow pre-service teachers I meet, and the students. Life is an ongoing lesson. We all matter. We all make a difference. Each choice we have impacts not only ourselves but also others - think about it: change one thing that you did today, whether it be a different setting or a different way of answering something or a different person you sat next to; how much difference would that have made? Yes. A lot.