I recently did a review for the Spanish Journal of Pedagogy on an essay entitled Corazón Educador by Jaume Camps, a former professor I had at the university.
The book highlights that behind many educators we find something immaterial, an intangible that is often called vocation. This is defined and perceived by the testimony of many teachers over time: what gives fullness, which invades them from within; which provides a tune and connection with students by making them discover their needs.
Surprisingly, vocational teachers, without prior study or calculation, are often able to give an immediate and right answer even in the most complex and confusing situations. This knowledge goes hand in hand with pedagogical love: when one wants the good of the other, he is able to give what suits him to help him grow.
All this, read with MAP glasses -from the perspective of the existence of the interior-, evidences that interior capable of loving and giving an immediate, successful response to any human situation; which allows us to look into the eyes and discover thebackground of any person.
It is often experienced, according to book witnesses, as if there were an imaginary guide marking the way forward. Without knowing exactly how, the guide gives them results: an intuition that appears suddenly, completely, unexpectedly… out of control. It arises just when reason, calculation, is not present; neither previous reflection nor study.
This inner knowledge is not studied in the university training plan, but it transpires and pre-exists even before the professional choice.
From the unrepeatable personal singularity, it is necessary to take care of the heart from the heart (the interior from the interior of the person) only this is the effective way towards the harmonic growth (that allows to fit the outside with the interior of the person).