To Be A TEACHER: The World's Greatest Profession

By Viggo Pete Hansen

Viggo Pete Hansen has been a lifelong educator. He has experienced many changes in curricula and class management styles—globally, working with educators in twenty nations. Today the demand for internationally qualified teachers, at all levels, is growing exponentially.
Teaching is an ancient profession essential for human survival. Teacher preparation and ongoing support is now more challenging due to; new content, instructional technology, presentations that must address a myriad of languages, cultural backgrounds, and financial inequalities.
Hansen suggests that today character education might be more important than simple content mastery. As a profession, teaching is under stress from students, parents, bureaucracies and commercial greed. “Teachers” is written in a conversational, engaging and humorous manner while being a powerful reminder that education is essential for humankind’s long term survival.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Viggo Pete Hansen
• Release date: Aug 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005763909

Viggo Pete Hansen

Viggo Pete Hansen was born to homesteading Danish-speaking immigrants on the dusty plains of Plentywood, Montana. During the depression his family moved to Askov, MN. He was educated in Askov, Des Moines, IA and the University of Minnesota. Pilot at the age of 20. He served as an Air Force nuclear weapons officer during Korean conflict.From his first moments in the classroom teaching algebra he was exhilarated and hooked. He spent his career; teaching math/science/education courses, assisting student teachers, directing graduate courses, locally and in International schools. He is currently an emeritus professor and administrator from Cal State, Northridge, CA.Hansen’s passion for teaching is based on years in classrooms and knowing from military experience how truly fragile human survival has become. Teaching is the premiere profession that can lead to a happy, long and rewarding life for everyone. But educators can’t do it alone.

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Viggo Pete Hansen

To Be A TEACHER

Copyright © 2022 Viggo Pete Hansen

All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means— electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher or the author, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

Published by Harrier Publishing

Tampa, Florida 33647 USA

www.harrierpublishing.com

ALSO BY VIGGO PETE HANSEN

Math Around Us

Activities in Mathematics

Applications in Mathematics

College Algebra

ELM Test Prep

Boundary Layer People

Noah – First Time Boater

Viglets 1 Pithy Wisdom

Viglets 2 Ode to Dumbness

Viglets 3 Time, Infinity, Eternity

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all those incredible folks who daily (for meager compensation) teach us all the necessities of good living and happiness.

Hopefully, many will follow your leadership and become a teacher - a wonderful life fulfilling career.

Thanks to –

- Dixie, my beloved wife and companion

- Incredibly tolerant family members

Alex, Leesa, Anne, Erich, Kathy, Mark H., Debra, Kimo, Mark R., John, Pieter, Ian, Paul, Ellen.

- My teachers, college, university and military mentors, colleagues, sailing comrades, and administrators - globally.

- The hundreds of students who taught me what little I may know and they did it so patiently

Viggo

Contents

Introduction

1. Who Are The Teachers

2. Why Teach

3. What to Teach

4. How To Teach

5. Where To Teach

6. Standards, Evaluations, Responsibilities

7 Degrees, Certification, Accreditation, Research

8. Classroom Vignettes

9. Epilogue

Ellen Hansen

AN AMAZING TEACHER AT WORK

Introduction

When the fear of knowledge and documented truth succumbs to acceptance of, and reliance on, unsubstantiated beliefs and falsities, society has a significant problem in moving into the inevitable future. Today, more than ever, we depend upon our teachers to convey essential knowledge and skills from the past that will enhance our future. Teachers’ enemies are ignorance, bigotry, greed, and other selfish interests.

Teachers deserve humankind’s collective adoration and support for their unwavering pilgrimage into the unknown by providing leadership for group survival through logical thinking and proper behavior.

Education is becoming a fast lube service whereby parents daily haul their most precious, although occasionally flawed, progeny to school hoping that teachers will, through modestly funded magic, create a behaviorally brilliant human being and thereby make them proud, praise-worthy parents. Forget the inherited imperfections and hellish environments along with ingrained mythical perspectives; teachers with their stardust, can and will handle these issues – at least some of them.

This book is intended to inspire and encourage those who have vision, the fortitude, and meet the criteria herein discussed to become teachers. To those who already are teachers, may you be honored and recognized for your devotion to enriching and possibly saving the human race – for a bit longer.

Caveats: If you do not enjoy learning, forget becoming a teacher. If you already know it all, you should also not seek to become a teacher – let alone a parent or politician.

Teaching is learning and

Learning is teaching.

Truth, logic, and humility are the badges proudly worn by ALL true teachers. Teachers are those gifted, endowed souls who continually desire to learn, are forever humbled by their quest, awed by their students, and occasionally relish modest achievements – at every level. They cheerfully soldier onward against the unknown, especially fear, bigotry, and ignorance, always with a smile of confidence and a triumphant sense of We shall overcome – damn deficit budgets, fake news, and demeaning social media comments.

When something is

learned, the learner is

forever changed.

And - so is the teacher!

Lurking behind the scenes in all of learning is something we call memory. This is of course the holy grail of all learning. Learning is useless without the ability to recall what was learned. Do you remember? If not, it must be relearned. All teaching will hopefully lead to knowledge, and then wisdom may follow.

Repeating mistakes

is a mistake.

Today being a professional teacher in America is akin to doing the Bunny Hop on a bed of hot coals. Each glowing ember represents a parent, politician, supervisor, religious guru, business mogul, psycho, and so on. These emotionally charged hot embers are never fully cooled; they flare up again and again when least expected. Just like ballet dancers, teachers keep hopping to avoid getting hotfooted.

Home schoolers, charter schools, and other private educational arrangements operate on a variety of premises and plot their own courses. To what extent these various endeavors are compatible with the democratic philosophy of "survival for all’’ remains to be seen. The ones to be concerned about are those nitwits who think they can do it better for less.

Education is neither easy nor cheap!

Democracy may be such an idealistic concept that perhaps current vagabonds on our tiny earthly spaceship (us) have not yet evolved (learned) for a long term happy-go-lucky cruise in the cosmos. History is replete with governments that eventually sputtered. Again it was their educational systems that led to their final demise.

Education is never static. There are pluses and minuses to every learning experience, both physical and mental. While teaching remains such a significant, vibrant and pioneering enterprise, it is often controlled by forces that are greedy and myoptic.

Teachers do create our futures.

It is probably true that teaching may be the second oldest recognized profession. Let’s face it, procreation was necessary for teachers, deans, and colleges of education to arise. Our universe, with life does exist – a fact generally agreed upon. It remains a challenge for us mere mortals to understand how or why. For certain we should be thankful, appreciative, humble, and strive to protect it while enjoying it.

The ultimate question that every teacher (parent, politician, doctor, scientist, etc.) daily face, at every level of sophistication, is:

What is life all about?

Why?

and for Whom?

Economists, politicians, military servants, chefs, entertainers, religious leaders, shoe shiners, business folks, and athletes are all focused on relatively narrow personal objectives, compared to the ones teachers daily face: i.g. understanding our universe, defining life, is anyone really in charge? Are there many dimensions we cannot understand? Learning is an exciting experience that may help answer these profound questions. Who are the leaders in these awesome adventures?

Teachers of course.

We may need to differentiate between training and educating, though they surely overlap and support each other. Obviously, there are some learning experiences, like potty training, that can be differentiated from What is the meaning of life? However, everything that is learned, even mundane stuff, should have some kind of meaningful enhancement for a wonderful future.

Some of the most tender and significant moments in education are witnessed by and when parents teach their