Alex

After working for 10 years in the IT field, Alex Zakarian felt something was missing in his life, and he began looking for a career in which he could find more meaning and direct impact on people’s lives. He turned to teaching, and recently completed his eighth year of teaching physics at Stedelijk Gymnasium Leiden.

 “I teach physics. I started my career at other schools, and I also taught mathematics and chemistry at lower levels. The gymnasium is … the highest level. Very bright children and also children that want to study and want to achieve something … I’ve been a teacher for 11 years now, and this is my eighth year here.” 

“Physics is a required class until the third grade. After that [students] can choose physics, and probably about two-thirds choose physics … Physics has switched from almost all computational exercises to more of a broader understanding of physics.”

“I was a computer analyst for 10 years. I wanted to switch to education, and I was asked to switch to [a private school in] The Hague … It was for me good to learn how to teach there because it had very small classes, maybe 10 children, and I could easily learn how to teach a subject.”

What inspired your career change?: “That is not an easy question. I was really looking for something else. Another way of spending the day … [The IT field] had diversity of tasks and a lot of opportunities for me. I could really choose a direction, technical or management or you name it, because it was a great company with a lot of opportunities. But when you look at the whole world of IT, maybe even business, I wanted to get out of that world. Why is not an easy question, but it has to do with what you think is important in life … I wanted to do something different.”

“I was always looking at how to be meaningful in life ... Sometimes this can be very practical. I had a [Master’s] degree in physics, so it was something that I could begin. So the opportunity was there.”

How did you start working in IT? “I didn’t become a teacher right after my university degree … I began working right away [after university] … I wanted a career, and I did interviews with a lot of big companies. But I was young and inexperienced. I wanted to work and do something, not continue to do job interviews. I was tired of this … I’m somebody who goes for the opportunities ... Sometimes life goes like that, you get an opportunity and you take it. And later you can change it if you want.”

What is most rewarding about teaching?: “That also isn’t an easy question. It has to do, I think, with thinking that you can be an inspiration, you can be a role model. That you can really influence people. And that’s not always directly by teaching … but [sometimes] smaller things. Talking to children when they have difficulties with physics or other things, maybe social issues, issues with motivation, which courses will I take, what’s the direction to go. Teaching is a lot of things. And becoming better [as a teacher] gives you a feeling of being meaningful for children.”

“It’s not an easy job. I struggled a lot the first years. I think most teachers will experience that, will have some kind of a dip (laughs). And if you come out of this dip you have this point on the horizon, and if you go there and you achieve that point it gives you a nice feeling of accomplishment.”

“[As a teacher] you’re passing on knowledge, but it’s more than that … it’s more about being able to discover the types of people … you get a good feeling of what people want and how you can help them. And that’s experience. You can’t tell a new teacher how to do that. You have to develop that feeling. Maybe that is something which is the most rewarding, your own development and that of your students.”

Alex, who is now 45, sees a need for educational reform in the Netherlands: “Teaching is a hard job because it’s a rigid system … Now we have computer-based learning, personalized learning, and I want to go that direction. I see so many opportunities and benefits from going that direction.”

“But to be able to change you need energy, you need time, you need money, and that is the hard part. The inefficiency and the rigidity of the system make people cynical in education. Some people can’t get out of that system. I think I managed to get around it a little bit.”

“In education we’re at the beginning of [a transition]. But it needs time. That’s because there are teachers who are older or who don’t want to change. There’s money in education, but not much. And also you have to look out for [making changes too rapidly] … you can go too fast in educational change. And it’s about children and it’s about people, so it’s very important that you don’t do the wrong things.”

“I think society needs to change [with regard] to how children have their time. They have so many tasks and hobbies and sports and also the computer and social activities. And there is a problem with concentration … girls and boys are different. Boys have a different strategy for learning. They need competition, they need more practical things. They cannot get the best out of the school because of the [way schools are organized] with study programs, lists, agendas.”

“There is a solution now because … we can use the computer to personalize education. If you can do that, everything changes. Because they don’t have to sit in the same room … The classroom can also be a burden. For some children, it is very hard to be in the classroom. For socially weaker children, it can be far better to organize it in a different way. Maybe they can find each other playing chess or hockey or whatever … a teacher can be more of a coach or a tutor.”

Alex is confident that change will come: “I think I’m one of the teachers here who has the ideas that go farthest … but I don’t want to do things on my own. I want to talk to people and do things together because you need each other … There are maybe 10 to 20 percent of the teachers [at the gymnasium] that want to change. And it will change. I’m absolutely sure that it will change … There are signs everywhere, even in the government … All these things will come together and in maybe five to 10 years it will change.”

Balancing work and life: “It is a challenge. Every teacher has his own way to deal with that. Some teachers cannot get out of the perfectionism, and they can have burn out and things like that. I’m not a perfectionist … sufficient is good enough. You have to guard that line.”

“I teach four days a week … but I spend [much of my off time] preparing … And I think that is not really fair. Because I have a full time job in my eyes … but I get paid for four days a week …. I’m not complaining because for me it’s a satisfying way of living. I live in the [same neighborhood as Stedelijk Gymnasium Leiden], and it’s a fine school, etcetera, etcetera. But it’s not fair. I think the [teacher] unions will take action … They will have to solve this problem because there’s a shortage of teachers, and it will grow.”

Information about Stedelijk Gymnasium Leiden is available at www.gymnasiumleiden.nl