Foreword

There are so many things to be said about education. It is a large subject and everybody has their ideas about it. The reason for this may well be that we all have intensive personal experiences and memories and/ or current struggles with schooling and education. Be it our own past as a pupil, as a student, facing challenges in school subjects but also in the social relationships that mark the context of education and the expectations we needed to live up to, be it for our own sake or for the sake of our parents and family.

And then we become parents ourselves and want our children to get the best education that they can get in today’s world. And we face their struggles, their challenges and their teachers. 

And since we all go through that, we all become experts in the field. Or so we think. Well, in a certain way we are, and so are the others around us who sometimes have different ideas about education.

And then there are those who become teachers. There seem to be more young people attracted to the profession today than in the past two decades. I am very happy about this. Teaching, education as a whole,  is a very rewarding occupation and having been a teacher myself I know how it feels when you have this special relationship with your learners and manage to support them in their understanding of themselves and of the world. I also know the struggles, the challenges and pain that comes with the profession and the hopelessness that sometimes overcomes us. Still, it is worth it. 

Not a long time ago I was invited to give a talk to the teachers of one school. The headmaster, a friend of mine, told me that I can speak about anything that I find important as long as it makes his teachers stop and reflect. So I made this list of 10 points that for me are crucial ingredients in the quest of making a good job of our undertaking and of managing to surf through the violent waves that sometimes hit us and to survive, with a smile. 

Josef Huber

March 2024, Gamlitz, Austria