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The best teachers I knew were entrepreneurs. No, not in the sense of leaving the classroom to start a business and somehow becoming wildly financially successful. Sure, you can find those examples published in all sorts of media. Rather, I mean entrepreneurs in the sense of people obsessed with solving problems, delivering clear and effective communication, and understanding the basis of our entire society: human relationships.
Teaching is damn hard work. It requires long hours, low salaries, constant conflict of one sort or another with all kinds of stakeholders, and dealing with younger people. At the same time, it provides “psychic income” in excess of almost all other professions. The teachers who care most about their students get paid in treasure everyday.
So, who are those who care so much? The ones I knew organized every moment in order to achieve the maximum amount of learning for the maximum number of students. They held themselves to the same rigorous standards they asked of their students. They executed on their personal mission: learning first, content second, conveyed in multiple ways and diverse formats. Not an easy task because human beings, in case you didn’t know, don’t absorb information just because they hear it. As one of my wise colleagues advised me early in my career, “Just because you say it doesn’t mean they learn it.”
