Back in the early 1990s when I was a young school student, I remember on many a summer afternoons I would meet all my cousins during the vacations.

One of our favourite games would be to drape a dupatta around, as though it was a saree and stand facing one of the walls of a room and pretending to be a teacher and write something on an imaginary blackboard and teach the other cousins as if they were students.

I know some of you reading this in today’s context may not be able to relate to it, and some of you may even think that I was a silly child, but the fact is that in every generation you will find some children aspiring to be teachers.

Teaching is considered to be one of the noblest professions at all times across all the cultures and traditions in this world.

This is because of its obvious nature of the work and which is to teach and impart knowledge.

Academic teaching has many aspects to it, but anyone willing to pursue teaching as a career has to first and foremost be willing to become a teacher and also understand that the will alone won’t be enough to make this career a successful reality.

In the early 2000s, academic teaching was confined to blackboards and physical classrooms where students would attend an approximate of 45 minutes of a class for a particular subject, where the methods of teaching were predominantly from education board approved textbooks.

If the teacher was innovative enough, then they would also do some pre-work before the class and come up with innovative examples and methods to help the students understand the subjects.

However, with the change of times and the advent of technology, the profession also took a new shade.

Every teacher, no matter what their subject of specialisation is, they now have to keep up with the methods of technology-aided teaching.

So, what does it take to become a teacher? Here is a quick take on how you can become one if you aspire to.

Patience: The most important attribute of a teacher is patience. Every aspiring teacher needs to remember that they will not always get the most ideal group of students.

Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardour and attended with diligence ~ Abigail Adams

Many times a teacher may chance upon students that understand the lesson and its meaning just by one-time explanation, but there are many more situations in which students need to be taught and explained more than once, by changing methods of teaching, by altering the examples according to the students’ surroundings.

This takes a lot of effort, but the satisfaction it gives you is beyond compare.

Hence, for any aspiring teacher, patience holds the key.

Desired Qualification: Depending on what an aspiring teacher wants to teach, the education qualification varies accordingly.

However, certain basic criteria like a Bachelor’s degree in Education (B.Ed) helps an individual to kick start the career as an educator.

Then again, if you aspire to teach children in the pre-primary schooling you ought to undergo a Montessori training.

If one aspires to master the various aspects of education, M.Ed is the next course one need to look out for.

There are terms used like TGT and PGT in the job descriptions released by schools for teacher’s positions.

A TGT is a Trained Graduate Teacher and is eligible to teach classes up to secondary education.

A PGT is a Post Graduate Trained Teacher who is eligible to teach the higher secondary students.

The training, certifications and accreditations are imperative as they include a lot of understanding about the psychology of a student at different age levels, varieties of methods to simplify learning for students with varied mental capabilities in one class, dealing with stress, counselling the students for several situations and several aspects of objectivity of teaching profession.

One cannot underrate the relevance of these courses as they help an academic teacher in conducting their day to day activities smoothly.

Being A Student: As weird as it may sound, it is true that a good educator has to have an open mind at all times to learning and be a good student themselves before venturing out into teaching and also while one is a teacher already.

The ‘I know it all’ attitude does not help or ease out the process of being a capable teacher.

If every aspiring teacher keeps the student in them alive then they are certain to reach various heights.

Upgrading Subject Knowledge: One may be a Science teacher or an English teacher, the subjects that one earned as a student has had many additions ever since.

Even though a lot of times the reference books on any subject are written many decades back, the subject itself will have many advances and upgradations with the current times and that are what a teacher has to notice and add them in their knowledge base to stay at par with the times.

Upskilling: The world is ever-evolving and a teacher can never remain in the same place as they were in the last academic session.

They need to constantly upskill themselves with the latest information on technology and the new means of learning, to be able to stay in synchronisation with the students’ learning needs.

With the presence of smartphones, tablets and laptops in almost every urban household and students, learning how to impart education through online media has become a task that can’t be postponed any further by the teachers.

It is interesting to note that, in our current times, due the world being hit by a pandemic and social distancing becoming a way of life to avoid the contagion, where schools have closed for an indefinite period, teachers who until last year were comfortable only going to a classroom and teaching students have surprised themselves and the community at large of how soon they adapt to online teaching.

Academic teaching is one of the most underpaid professions world over, however, the onus of character and knowledge building of the youth of any nation lies undoubtedly on this one profession.

Anyone who is already a teacher should be proud of the duties they dispense whilst every aspiring teacher must take inspiration from the very famous quote by Albert Einstein -It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.