"Teacher"s calling is to bring young people to their callings", that is how we understand
Yevhen. That is the core of the teacher"s mission in the world. If one is called to teach, he or she leads young generation by the way of knowledge and prompts them to be mature, respon-sible and beneficial citizens. That is a way to make young people happy in their lives.
Therefore, to be a teacher is a different thing than just to have a teacher"s job. Teaching is a way of living when internal work never stops.
Svitlana has been a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature for 30 years. Teaching is a task not only to help young people find their own ways, but also to show those ways in purpose, to give the direction in the society, even to make them patriots of their land and cul-ture. Black weekdays are shined for the teacher by the asterisks of children"s success, because everyone has own talent.
"For Ukrainians calling is what they feel by heart and then recognize in mind", says Svit-lana. Teacher is called to bring goodness and knowledge into the world. Teacher"s calling is permanent development in order to develop others. "Teacher is a perpetual pupil."
Laura is a teacher of arts and social educator at school. For 32 years she has been in ed-ucation starting from a day nursery and then working at school. Calling for her is an internal flame that she carries all the life. It can be strong or weak sometimes, but it cannot extinguish. Whatever various it is or looks like, in its essence it is the same. Calling always finds its way of realization and influences the surrounding. It is holistic. Thus, Laura"s gift for painting is not a hobby or just a tool for a lesson. It is a part of educating process and her art-therapy.
For the educator calling is a passion to help people and a will to achieve a positive result, because the result is a benefit for the life of children and their families. Educator has to be a winner, not a dominator, but a strong person able to take risk and to achieve goals. Teaching a-priory serves good purposes, for education cannot be evil in essence.
Caroline has been working at school for a one and a half year. She is a psychologist doing her PhD project. A career consultancy or vocational guidance is a part of her work with pupils. Caroline says that she does not teach, but she guides. As a psychologist, she likes bringing people to their own right solutions.
Her calling as an educator and a school psychologist is to help young people to realize themselves and to find out what they like to do and to be. "All the taste of life, its beauty and diversity is what one called for. Still, it is one"s choice to go for it or do not go. We cannot drive one into a calling", says Caroline.
Comparisons with the results of Jared T. Bigham"s research "Role of
Spirituality in Persons Choosing a Career in Education:
Calling as a Motivating Factor"
One of the sources of inspiration for the presented research was the article of Jared Bigham and Samuel Smith "Called to Teach: Interpreting the Phenomenon of Calling as a Motivating Factor" [Bigham & Smith, 2008]. Thanks to Prof. Samuel J. Smith, I got the manuscript of Jared Bigham"s dissertation and thus the possibility to know about that research in the details. With my own research, I am answering the call of Bigham to conduct the similar study in a different environment. Here is just a brief comparison of the results. To begin with the differ-ences, my research was not about the role of spirituality in choosing of teaching profession. It was first of all about the phenomenon of calling itself. The samples for the interviews were
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The Experience of Calling: Educational Aspects and Cross-Cultural Comparisons by Yevhen Muliarchuk
also different. The pupils, students, and teachers were from secular educational institutions. The cultural background was different too. Ukraine is a Christian country, but mainly Ortho-dox, where Protestant and Catholic denominations are rather minorities. The everyday life of Ukrainians flows mainly in a secular surrounding. Religion is a rather good old tradition for the most part. We conducted a quantitative research to confirm that the idea of calling is in the trend of Ukrainian school and university youth"s vision of their future work and life. We have also done 5 interviews with teachers to deepen and validate our knowledge from student"s in-terviews. That was not in the frame of the referred American research. Anyway, it is interesting to sum up what we have got in common and what actually differs.
The reasons for the choice of teaching profession and the spread of the idea of calling could be different in Ukraine and in the USA, but we would not compare the exact shares of opinions. We just state that there is a phenomenon of calling in Ukraine. We have got various evidences of vocational motivation in our research. For instance, about 30-35% of school pupil youth feel a calling for their future profession or for some other kind of occupation in their life and state their will to serve society or some good purpose in the world. As for pedagogic university students it appears that 60% of them would like to work and communicate with children, 35% would like to teach and educate youth, 29% want to benefit society and serve others and 18% feel a spiritual calling for goodness. For more than a half of Ukrainian school and student youth, it is important to choose a career according to calling.
All in all the phenomenon of calling appears the same in such different countries like Ukraine and the USA. It emerges in the process of understanding and interpretation of per - sonal experience and is rather not just a single event of revelation. Although there can be some special events and sparks of inspiration that further interpretation recognizes as a calling. The American and Ukrainian students also generally accept the idea of passion for something and of gifts as the base of calling. In our research, we have also got opinions of the part of students and teachers that God gives talents and the person is free to develop them or not. The common understanding of calling as caring for social and spiritual benefit is also supported by our comparison. We got the same evidence of the dynamics of intrinsic force and external pull in the construct of calling. Moreover, the progression when calling became more and more evident in time is also a generally valid way of interpretation of the phenomenon.
A born-to-the-calling philosophy can also have its place in both countries, because for some people it was clear from early years what they would like to do and to be. Some images or metaphors about calling are also corresponding in the language of Ukrainians and Amer-icans. Thus the metaphor of "doors opening and closing to guide a person into a particular role" [Bigham, 2008: 69] can be supported from our interviews by the image of open path to go. There is, however, a difference about the idea of a direct impact from outside on a called person. For the religious believers "implicit in vocation is the presence of a caller. In biblical narratives, the caller has a name Yahweh, God, Jesus. The caller"s voice is heard as something outside the person called" [VanOosting, 2002: 11]. Most of the students in the American re-search would agree with that. Even though they did not have, and had not expected to get, a direct vocal experience of calling, they do believe and say openly that God calls them, for example, to became teachers [Bigham, 2008]. Whereas in a secular educating institutions like we have seen in Ukraine it was true out of 10 only for 1 or 2 students. Nevertheless, the idea of God"s rather subtle providence was acceptable for the half of our interviewees. The Orthodox Christian people in Ukraine would say that in a rather humble way. For us, Ukrainians, the
