ABSTRACT
The self is important in teaching. Teaching as a job involves a huge investment of the self: this is true in two senses. Firstly, teaching involves one’s personality as a means of communication. Whatever kind of person one might be, is projected, even amplified in the business of teaching. Secondly, teaching has an impact on the self: the learning involved in learning to teach is affective as well as cognitive. Emotional engagement is necessary for teaching as much as intellectual engagement. Good or bad lessons generate feelings: in good lessons those of euphoria, excitement, relief, satisfaction, hope; in bad lessons, or those that do not ‘go well’, feelings of sadness, guilt, disappointment, even despair. Through the responses of children, one can learn about oneself. Thus teaching encompasses a two-way process as regards the self: one both invests one’s self in the job, and learns about one’s self through teaching.
