Teaching is no doubt a noble profession, you can’t be a good teacher without having empathy and patience.

When I think of a good teacher, I think of a former manager who developed simple solutions for complex problems and treated everyone with kindness. That’s how I wanted to be and was frustrated I wasn’t there already.

When I think of my teachers from school, the male ones fade into the background perhaps because there were very few of them. There was that female teacher who slapped me on my back at seven when I mistook her sister for her daughter, a teacher who would ask us how much money we got for Eid because her sons got a lot and a teacher who said she didn’t give out autographs when no one asked for any.

Maybe it’s only the odd ones who stand out but nonetheless I always wanted to be a teacher. We’d have to stand up when a teacher entered the classroom in Pakistan. “Good mooorrrning Misss!”, we’d sing collectively and sit down when the teacher told us to. I was shocked when we didn’t stand up in Australia and when I heard students talk back.

I decided not to go for teaching but it’s funny how things you’re drawn to tend to return to you. I’ve just started a course on training and am the most engaged at work when teaching others.