Teaching as

Your Vocation,
Mission, and
Profession
John Lorence D. Camacho
 Learning Outcome:
•Explain teaching as a vocation and
mission
•Deeper understanding and appreciation
of teaching as a profession
 Engage:
✓When a mother says, “I think my son has a
vocation”, what does she mean?
✓A soldier report and says “Mission
accomplished”. What does this imply? What
does it mean?
✓Some teachers regard teaching as just a job.
Others see it as their mission. What is the
difference? Read the selection Teaching:
Mission and/or Job.
 Teaching: Mission and/or Job?
➢If you are doing it only because you are paid for it, it’s a job;
➢If you are doing it only for the pay but also for service, it’s a mission.
➢If you quit because your boss or colleague criticized you, it’s a job;
➢ If you keep on teaching out of love, it’s a mission.
➢If you teach because it does not interfere with your other activities, it’s a job;
➢If you are committed to teaching even if it means letting go of other activities,
it’s a mission.
➢ If you quit because no one praise of thanks you for what you do, it’s a job;
➢ If you remain teaching even nobody recognizes your efforts, it’s a mission.
➢ It’s hard to get excited about a teaching job;
➢ It’s almost impossible not to get excited about a mission.
➢ If our concern is success, it’s a job;
➢ If our concern is success plus faithfulness, it’s a mission.
➢ An average school is fulfilled by teachers doing their teaching job; A great school is
filled with teachers that is involved in a mission of teaching.
1.What is meant by vocation? Mission?
2.Are these two (vocation and mission)
related?
3.What is the difference between teaching
as a job or a mission?
“One looks back with
appreciation to the brilliant
teachers, but with gratitude to
those who touched our human
feelings…”
Carl Jung
 Etymology of the word
“vocation”
Vocation comes from latin word “vocare”
which means to call. Based on the
etymology of the word, vocation, therefore
means a call. If there is a call, there must
be a caller and someone who is called.
There must also be a respond.

➢For Christians, the caller is God

Himself.
➢For our brother and sister Muslims,
Allah.
 Etymology of the word
“mission”
Teaching is also a mission.
The word mission comes from the
Latin word “misio” which means “to
send”. You are called to be a teacher
and you are sent into the world to
accomplish a mission, to teach.
The Webster’s New Collegiate
Dictionary defines mission as “task
assigned”. You are sent to accomplish
an assigned task.
 Teaching as your mission
➢Teaching is your mission means it is the
task entrusted to you in this world. If it is
your assigned task then naturally you’ve
got to prepare yourself for it.
➢From now on you cannot take your studies
for granted! Your four years of pre-service
preparation will equip you with the
knowledge, skills and attitude to become an
effective teacher.
➢As a saying goes “once a teacher, forever a
student.”
 What exactly is the mission to teach?
➢It is merely to teach the child the fundamental
skills or basic r’s reading ‘riting, ‘rithmetic
and right conduct?
➢it is to deposit facts and other formation into
the empty minds of students to be withdrawn
during quizzes and tests?

To teach is to help the child

become more human.
A letter given by a private school principal to her teachers on the first day of a new
school year may make crystal clear for you your humanizing mission in teaching:

Dear Teacher:
I am a survivor of a concentration camp.
My eyes saw what no man should witness:
-Gas chamber built by learned engineers.
-Children poisoned by educated physicians.
-Infants killed by trained nurses.
-Woman and babies shot and burned by high school and college
graduates.
So I am a suspicious of education.
My request is: Help the students become human.
Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths,
and Eichmann’s.
Reading, writing, arithmetic are important only
if they serve to make our children more
human.
“Mission accomplished!” This is what a
soldier tells his superior after he has
accomplished his assigned mission. Can we
say the same when we meet our “Superior”
face to face?
 The “pwede na” mentally vs. excellence

➢The “striving for excellence” as a element a

profession brings us to our “pwede na”
mentality, which is inimical excellence.
➢This mentality is expressed in other ways like
“talagang ganyan ‘yan”, “wala na tayong
magawa”,-all indicators of defeatism and
resignation to mediocrity.
➢The morality rate in the Licensure
Examination for Teachers for first ten years is
a glaring evidence that excellence is very much
wanting of our teacher graduates.
➢If we remain true to our calling and mission a
professional teacher. We have no choice but to
take the endless and the “less travelled road”
to excellence.
 Teaching and a life of meaning
➢Want to give our life meaning? Want to live a
purpose-driven life? Spend it passionately in
teaching, the noble profession.
➢Consider what Dr. Josette T. Biyo, the first
Asian teacher to win the Intel Excellence in
Teaching Award in an international
competetion, said in a speech delivered before
a selected goup of teachers, superintenders,
DepEd officials and consultants, to wit:
➢Teaching may not be lucrative position. It
cannot guarantee financial security. It even
means investing your personal time, energy,
and resources.
➢Sometimes it means disappointments,
heartaches, and pains. But touching hearts of
people and opening the minds of children
can give you joy and contentment which
money could not buy.
➢These are the moments I teach for. These
are the moments I live for.