Four Reasons Why YOU Should Teach

The Psychological Benefits of Becoming an Educator

Before we begin:

I’ve been teaching in NYC for seven years (6 years at a small underperforming public high-school, and 1 year at a top magnate high school with over 6,000 students) and have also spent four years teaching and lecturing in high schools and colleges in my home country of Armenia. I adore teaching, even in its broader forms — whether it’s being a summer counselor, training a friend at the gym, or conferencing with a small group of young writers.

My love for teaching however, leaves me saddened by the news that there are teacher shortages across the United States (with states like New York suffering a 50% job enrollment decline over the last decade) [i] and many countries across the world. In this digital age of misinformation and terrible role models, the youth more than ever before need real-life purveyors of knowledge and guidance.

But the reward of more good teachers isn’t limited to the students. Becoming a teacher of any sort — a trainer, coach, pastor, mentor, or tutor — has manifold benefits for the teacher as well. Aside from the resume/CV boost, there are many psychological benefits to becoming an educator (of any sort). Here are four of the most important.

1. It Fights Mankind’s Biggest Fear: Public Speaking

The fear of public speaking (glossophobia) is our commonest anxiety, both across the United States and globally, affecting up to ¾ths of the world. [ii] Similarly, Social Anxiety Disorder impacts at least 7% of Americans. [iii] Likely rooted in our evolved circuitry telling us both that unfamiliar tribes might be dangerous and that being alienated from our tribe meant almost certain death, we have a deep-rooted fear in voicing ourselves in front of the public eye.

The traits tied to belonging to a group — to be part of a social unit (or units) — is tied to our identity as humans. In turn, anything that jeopardizes our belonging fills us with a mortal dread, as if our life is very much at stake. You might consciously understand that things aren’t necessarily a life-or-death situation as you begin messing up your best friend’s wedding speech, but something happens to you as you watch the bride cringe and the gatherers squint with impatience.

That anxiety is tied to the thousands of years of hard wiring that tells you that your time living on this planet might be running thin. [1]

Though the evolutionary hindrances are invisible to us, these fears manifest visibly in silly anxieties we tell ourselves — consciously — like “What if they don’t like me?” (fear of being out-grouped) or “Who am I to teach anyone else?” (imposter syndrome). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy — the fusion of behavioral therapy and cognitive therapy that occurred in the 1980s — helps us fight these irrational beliefs, but if we don’t have the time, money, or energy to learn these techniques or talk to specialist, we can comfort ourselves with one truth: The students aren’t there for YOU. They are there for the subject, topic, or sport.

This might seem trivial, but its magnitude for combating our fear of public speaking is immeasurable. We fear personal rejection, which makes every large social interaction feel like a gamble. (Remember: if the ‘tribe’ rejects you, you die.) But when we are teaching, we are effectively deflecting or redirecting a large portion of that gamble. Both teacher and learner can focus on their passion for the topic being taught — a shared interest, mutual love for a sport, or a common goal. In this low-stakes environment, we are effectively practicing public speaking without the fear of personal rejection, making this omnipresent phobia less and less intimidating as we acclimate to our role.

2. It Broadens our Perspective

Perhaps the most famous words of George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series is Tyrion Lannister’s explanation for why he reads so much:

“A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”

On the same topic of reading, we can turn to Japanese author Haruki Murukami’s iconic 1987 novel Norwegian Wood. When the protagonist Watanabe asks Nagasawa what kinds of books he reads and is surprised at his unfashionable answers, Nagasawa explains:

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

Combining these iconic quotes provides us some insight on the benefits of teaching. Each person you teach represents an entirely new perspective, one that you by proxy are becoming at least familiar with. Even simply coaching a volleyball team exposes one to six different minds from which we can learn. That means six different ways of seeing the world, understanding language, and interpreting events.

Exposure to different perspectives does for us socially what exposure to different germs does for our immune system: it strengthens it against pathologies. Nothing diversifies our mental palate more than interacting with and experiencing different cultures. As American travel-writer Rick Steves (1955 — Present) put it: “Travel wallops my ethnocentricity.” [iv] Xenophobia — or the fear of the ‘other’ — is commonest among those who’ve never traveled, who’ve never had their social ‘immune system’ tested.

We naturally prefer what is familiar, and teaching — like few other professions — broadens the parameters of what is familiar to us. Broadening our familiarity makes life more understandable, accessible, and favorable.

3. It Strengthens our Social Intelligence

Miscommunication is the root of all tragedy. “War is what happens when language fails,” writes Canadian author and icon of feminism, Margaret Atwood. Because of the different perspectives that teaching exposes us to, we are continuously tested and challenged socially.

Developmental psychologist, Dr. Howard Gardner (1947 — Present), is perhaps most known for his Multiple Intelligence Theory. [v] In this theory, Gardner names eight types of intelligence: Naturalist, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Spatial, Musical, Linguistic, Logical-mathematical, Intrapersonal (our understanding of ourselves), and Interpersonal (our understanding of others). Teaching is perhaps the most powerful practice of interpersonal intelligence.

Consider this: Sometimes we don’t understand how we ourselves feel until we begin venting to a friend. There is something therapeutic about being forced to verbalize our abstract woes so that they are accessible to someone else. This ability to ‘package’ what would otherwise remain internal is a large component of our communication skills, and communications skills are a large portion of our overall social skills.

When we teach, we not only practice different ways of packaging information for others, but we also become increasingly privy to cues in body, verbiage, and tone that indicate whether or not we are doing a good job. Remember that much of communication is non-verbal. In one controlled study on the emotional impact of words, only 7% of communication was found to be in word-choice, whereas 38% was through vocal tones (rhythm, speed, etc.) and 55% in facial expressions. [vi] Every time we engage in teaching, we are practicing all the different forms of effective communication, whether or not our lesson, tutoring session, or practice was successful. With each attempt, our interpersonal intelligence strengthens.

4. Teaching is Meaningful (and Good!)

Positive Psychology, a psychological subfield evolving out of Humanistic Psychology in the 1990s, is a truly field. While almost all traditional schools of psychology analyzed what is wrong with us, positive psychology asks what is right with us and works towards bringing those traits to the forefront of our lives. As one researcher puts it: “Positive psychology is concerned not with how to transform, for example, -8 to -2 but with +2 to +8.” [vii] In short, Positive Psychology aims to help average individuals better achieve happiness, fulfillment, and well-being.

Our long-term happiness, according to Russian-American professor of psychology, Sonja Lyubomirsky (1966 — Present), is determined by our genes (50%), life circumstances (10%), and life choices (40%). [viii] This means that nearly half of our happiness is determined by factors in our control. Positive Psychology’s founder, American psychologist, Martin E. P. Seligman (1942 — Present), streamlined our potential for advancements in our happiness through his acronym PERMA, representing the five core elements for sustained well-being: Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Achievement. [ix]

The penultimate element, Meaning, which we are focusing on here, has been best analyzed by Austrian neurologist and Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl (1905–1997). In his 1946 best-seller Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl spends half his pages recounting his experience in concentration camps and the other half introducing his theory of Logotherapy. Frankl defines logotherapy as a focus on “the meanings to be fulfilled by the patient in his future.”[x] While Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) believed we are motivated by a will to pleasure and Alfred Adler (1870–1937) believed that we are motivated by a will to power, Frankl deviated from these two profound psychoanalysts by instead emphasizing our will to meaning. This form of therapy can be understood as an applied form of Neitzche’s quote: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” [xi]

Almost any how indeed, as Frankl’s ideas were born from those who suffered perhaps the most horrific experiences of the 20th century. Without meaning — without a future goal to aspire to — we are void of the inner strength that keeps us fortified against life’s many, many difficulties. And of course, this ‘meaning’ is not a search for the universal meaning of life. Frankl clarifies this best: “We need to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life — daily and hourly. Our answers must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct.” [xii]

Teaching is manifoldly rewarding because you are taking what is meaningful to you — say chess, wine manufacturing, or fashion — and placing it within young minds that will carry it forward. When I taught one of my creative writing students how to throw a spiral (with an American football), I was elated when I saw him teach several of the other students how to do so — and I care almost zero about football.

Ernest Hemingway famously wrote that, “Every man has two deaths, when he is buried in the ground and the last time someone says his name. In some ways men can be immortal.” When you teach, you memorialize yourself through the knowledge placed in young minds, and help ensure that what is meaningful to you will continue being meaningful to others.

Notes:
[1] This anxiety is detectable chemically, by the way. Stress — whether or not socially induced — causes us to release the hormone cortisol (along with adrenaline), an excess of which impairs the hippocampus’s ability to encode (capture) and recall (remember) memories. Cortisol increases the functions that would be ideal for a ‘fight-or-flight’ situation, while curbing functions non-essential to such a threatened atmosphere. Our memory (especially long-term memory), reproductive system, and even our digestive system are all hindered when we are affected by stress. Fear, then, is in many ways the “mind-killer”, as expressed in the Litany Against Fear incantations in Frank Herbert’s Dune.

Works Cited
[i] https://www.nysut.org/resources/special-resources-sites/look-at-teaching/why-teach/teacher-shortage#:~:text=Enrollment%20in%20New%20York%20State's,areas%20throughout%20New%20York%20State.
[ii] Hamilton, C. (2008) [2005]. Communicating for Results, a Guide for Business and the Professions (eighth edition). Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.
[iii] Harvard Medical School, 2007. National Comorbidity Survey (NCS). (2017, August 21). Retrieved from https://www.hcp.med.harvard.edu/ncs/index.php.
[iv] Steves, R. (2011, November). The value of travel | Rick Steves | TEDxRainier [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYXiegTXsEs&t=1012s
[v] Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.
[vi] Mehrabian, A. (1971). Silent messages (Vol. 8, №152, p. 30). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
[vii] Boniwell, I. (2012). What is Positive Psychology. In Positive psychology in a nutshell the science of happiness (Third ed., pp. 1–8). Berkshire, England: McGraw Hill Open University Press.
[viii] Lyubomirsky, S. (2007). The how of happiness: A scientific approach to getting the life you want. Penguin Press.
[ix] Seligman, Martin (2011). Flourish. New York: Free Press. pp. 16–20. ISBN 9781439190760.
[x] Frankl, V. E. (2006). Logotherapy in a Nutshell. In Man’s search for meaning (pp.97–136). Boston: Beacon Press.
[xi] Nietzsche, F. W., & Large, D. (1998). Twilight of the idols, or, How to philosophize with a hammer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[xii] Frankl, V. E. (2006). Logotherapy in a Nutshell. In Man’s search for meaning (pp.97–136). Boston: Beacon Press.

Samuel Armen is an author, educator and activist. Orphaned after Armenia’s Gyumri-Spitak Earthquake in 1988 and adopted by Armenian-Americans based in New York, he makes it his life goal to give back. Currently, he divides his time between psychology research for his book (Acceptance), teaching ELA & AP English Language and Composition in the top public high school in Brooklyn, creative writing guest lectures at The Russian Armenian University in Yerevan, teaching and managing an English Creative Writing program (Project Bloom) through the Children of Armenia Fund, uplifting members of his community through digital advocacy, and publishing articles and poetry. His writing has appeared in HetQ (June — September 2011), CivilNet (2018), The Showbear Family Circus (Aug. 2020), Dreamers Creative Writing (Nov. 2020), The Raw Art Review (Winter 2020), Prometheus Dreaming (October 2021), Hey, I’m Alive Magazine (November 2021), Beyond Words Magazine (February 2022), Wingless Dreamer (February 2022), Allegory Ridge (Spring 2022), and Griffel (Spring 2022).