A calling

Dr Fahim Chand | Wednesday March 11, 2026 08:25

Her reflections on becoming a teacher reveal someone not merely choosing a profession, but quietly choosing the future itself. Here is her remarkable story.

Truthfully, I never grew up saying, “I want to be a teacher”. At 13, I wanted to be a pilot. I dreamed of soaring through the sky, having the responsibility of passengers’ lives in the palms of my hands -but ironically, that desire to carry something meaningful never left. Life simply redirected it. I may not be flying aircraft across continents, but I’m shaping minds, helping little people take off in their own way.

Today, I say it with pride-I am a teacher. I beam every time someone asks what I do. I look forward to being asked. I want to be asked just so that I can put myself on a pedestal. It’s not just a job, it’s a way of life. It’s the one title I’ve worn that feels like a calling. Teaching chose me before I even understood what it meant.

At first, I thought teaching was about turning “nothing” into “something”, but I quickly realised it’s more like guiding a blank canvas as it paints itself. It’s not about controlling the process-it’s about creating a space where growth is possible, little by little.

“Teacher” is such a simple word, yet so often taken for granted by almost everyone, sometimes by teachers themselves. Teaching is not a career I clock into and out of. I breathe it, live it, carry it with me. And it’s hard. Some days are long. Some weeks feel like they last a year. But all of that fades when I remember what I get to witness every single day: a child learning how to hold a pencil, someone taking their first step onto a jungle gym, someone else figuring out how to share. I wake up knowing that today, I might help shape a future astronaut, a future teacher, or a responsible citizen. Yes, it’s exhausting. But it’s also the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done. These moments may seem small to the world, but to me, they’re everything. I don’t remember the mess or the stress-I remember the moments, the laughs, the joy. The child at the centre of it all.

To me, teaching means becoming so many things at once. I’m a mathematician measuring how long a child can balance before tipping over: calculating how many steps it’ll take before a child trips. I’m a linguist, listening to stories about dinosaurs, grocery shopping trips, and made-up creatures, and helping turn them into meaningful conversations. I’m a scientist, hypothesising how we’re going to overcome today’s challenge.

I’m a kinesiologist, watching how their muscles develop with every climb, jump, and crawl. I’m a mediator, helping resolve sharing squabbles like a mini courtroom judge. I’m a detective, looking for missing shoes, hairbands, and water bottles, and trying to determine where they were last seen. I’m even a performer, a cheerleader sometimes, putting on silly voices, dancing offbeat, and celebrating every little milestone like we just won an Olympic medal. I’m a teacher too, leading, motivating, and educating. And then there’s the part that most people don’t see-the emotional weight. Being a teacher means being a safe space. It means being the adult a child looks forward to seeing each morning. For some children, that’s the only constant they have beyond home. Knowing that I can be that for someone, even for just one child, means everything.

So, when I ask myself what I want to be remembered as, it’s simple.

I want to be remembered as a teacher.

The teacher who wiped runny noses. The teacher who celebrated when a child learnt how to use scissors. The one who knelt beside them when they scraped their knee. The teacher paused everything to hear a child’s made-up story because, to them, it was important. The teacher who danced, coloured outside the lines, and never hesitated to sit “criss-cross-apple-sauce” on the floor just to be at their level. The teacher who saw them, really saw them, and believed in them-even on the days they didn’t believe in themselves

Most of all, I want to be remembered as Teacher Jaden.