Once upon a time, passion was the holy grail of teaching. “Love your subject,” they said. “Pour your heart into it,” they urged. And so, teachers did. They adored their subjects, lived and breathed them — until that very love began to suffocate their creativity, flexibility, and sometimes, their sanity. Today, as education races through the digital age, one can’t help but wonder: has our obsession with passion begun to strangle the art of great teaching itself? Picture the archetypal passionate teacher — eyes gleaming, voice quivering with enthusiasm, overflowing with facts and faith that their subject is the centre of the intellectual universe. A noble image, yes, until that passion turns classrooms into pulpits and lessons into sermons. Across schools and universities, lectures often sound less like invitations to learn and more like love letters to Shakespeare, calculus, or the cell structure.
Meanwhile, students sit politely — half intrigued, half lost — wondering why they must care so deeply about the mitochondria when their own lives feel like a battery running low. Here lies the irony: passion, once the spark that ignited curiosity, can easily become a wildfire that consumes it. The more tightly a teacher clings to their beloved subject, the less space remains for humour, empathy, or adaptability — the very qualities that make education human. What emerges are echo chambers where teachers speak at students instead of with them, and classrooms lose their air of discovery.
The problem deepens because our education systems often reward this tunnel-visioned passion. Institutions celebrate the expert — the specialist who knows every detail, quotes every theorist, and grades with precision. They are promoted, praised, and crowned “Subject Head.”
Yet, in this worship of expertise, we forget to give them time to breathe, explore, or play. A literature teacher may never code; a physics teacher may never discuss ethics; an economics teacher may never trace the poetic rhythm in trade cycles. Passion, in its most noble form, becomes a gilded cage — trapping educators within the narrow walls of their discipline. Then comes the emotional cost. Passion, when stretched too far, becomes exhaustion in disguise. Teachers pour themselves into lesson plans, grading, and endless professional development until there’s nothing left to pour. Burnout arrives dressed as dedication. What they often need is not another seminar on pedagogy, but a quiet evening, a laugh, and the permission to not care for a while. Passion without pause isn’t commitment —it’s slow martyrdom.
Yet all is not lost. Passion can be redeemed through balance, curiosity, and humility. Teaching isn’t about displaying how much one knows; it’s about inspiring how much students want to know. A passionate teacher becomes extraordinary when they step off the pedestal and explore new terrains. Imagine a maths teacher weaving poetry into symmetry or a biology teacher linking genetics with ethics. The goal isn’t to dilute expertise but to humanise it — to remind students that knowledge thrives when it crosses boundaries. The finest educators don’t worship their subjects; they dance with them — leaving room for laughter and discovery.
The writer is an educator and a councillor
