Why you should never become a teacher

Dear Son:

It’s one of those very rare moments that I, your father, decide to write a letter to you my boy. You come from a good stock of quick and wise thinkers and I’m sure you already know that it must be something emotional that makes me to write this piece to you. It is quite important to me that I write this short letter to you because I hate to imagine you getting this information from another source other than me, your father.

You know that you are a Kenyan and I want to advise you, as a really good father should, to enable you navigate the life’s labyrinth in this East African nation whose map looks like a dead cow’s skin. I want you to be a good student to your good teacher but promise me one thing son; you won’t be a teacher, will you?

How can you be a teacher? How can you? Do you really want to spend your entire lifetime wiping dirt from other people’s children? If you ignore my warning you will start by wiping their wet and dirty bottoms at the kindergarten and their slimy noses and unnecessary tears without realizing how much you will be filling their tabula rasa empty slates with your inherited wisdom.

Can you imagine, son, that majority of these kids do not even know the difference between their names and the images that surround them in their palatial homes? If you make a mistake of becoming a teacher, it will be your duty to teach them to identify themselves because you will have to teach them that their names sound exactly like the characters they see daily on their huge TV sets.

As you teach them remember you won’t be their role model because you will be telling them to work hard and join ‘proper’ careers. You will be telling them how tough they will be if they end up flying airplanes, treating the sick, managing huge companies, and oh my! I almost forgot the engineering craze that you need to instill in them.

When you avoid being a teacher, you will have lots of time to yourself and your business partners. Just imagine all the quality time you will have every evening at the bar cutting lucrative deals instead of supervising preps for free.

Do you know that if you make the mistake of becoming a teacher, you will be required to ensure the kids eat and sleep well? In some instances you will even have to sleep in the dorms because you are expected to act like some parent of sorts for free.  Even if you become the head of the school, more roles will be heaped on your shoulders and you will be lucky to see your real family as often as you would expect.

Making a person out of a child requires inflicting pain and soothing the injury at the same time. As a teacher, you will train, punish and counsel using the same breath. Can you imagine switching these roles every day for a pittance? Please don’t become a teacher, because it is so embarrassing to be a teacher in Kenya.