He came to teach at the “Onisifor Ghibu” Theoretical High School in the capital immediately after graduating from the Faculty of History at USM. The choice was somehow natural. He also studied in this high school and followed his path “from home to home”. The youthful spirit and excitement of the beginning ignites him, and the sparks in his eyes seem to be contagious.
I caught him at a lesson he was teaching to sixth graders. The children seemed mesmerized by the test on the board, and their desire to answer and impress the teacher was more than obvious. Along with them, Cătălin Vacarciuc, raised his voice and heated up the spirits, so that even the most stubborn of the students felt that now is their moment of affirmation.
AdvertisementTeacher? Poor you. It was like I was sick with the plague. What place do I have left, because I have one foot in the coffin.
Author: Cătălin Vacarciuc, history teacher
When he decided that he would be a teacher in a public high school, he knew that he would have to face not only the challenges of the profession, but also the skepticism with which he would be regarded by his friends. Even so, the young man decided to follow his vocation and do what he knows best – teach.
The work at school is not simple, the teacher admits. Each student is a small Universe that needs the right approach. The first months were the most difficult. The same with all beginnings. The teacher was patient with the students and himself. He took time to get used to the new reality and made concerted efforts to anchor himself in academia.
The first month of work was extremely stressful. After a week, I went to the college, to the teacher, and I said: teacher, I’m done, I’m leaving, I don’t need anything, don’t even give me 120 thousand, I want to go home, I want to go back to college . To which the professors from the faculty told me: Cătălin, still normal, it’s like that for everyone – both at the university and at school.
Author: Cătălin Vacarciuc, history teacher
One of the dilemmas hovering in his mind was: what do we do with respect? He never wanted to associate the notion of respect with fear, so he allowed his students to be curious, to ask questions, to question any statement they heard. Thus, he is convinced that he is laying the foundations for the analytical spirit of the young generation, and respect comes with it.
Cătălin Vacarciuc has several strengths. It is his overflowing energy and charisma that ensure his success in front of the class. It has the ability to create comprehensible parallels for rather complicated historical data. He draws lines from the past to the present, spices them up with the reality of our days and with examples available to students.
The teacher must have charisma. You have to be able to draw them into what the discipline of history is all about. With history, it seems to me that it is easier, because history can be packaged as a beautiful story, as I gave them examples of what matrimonial relations, vassalage, etc. mean. With math I don’t know how. 2+2 make 4. Something special, as if not.
Author: Cătălin Vacarciuc, history teacher
For the young history teacher, passion is rather an axiom. He cannot imagine what stronger arguments he could find for the professional choice he made. He loves his students, he loves what he does, he makes time for self-training and he feels that he is on his own path.
Although history is a complex discipline, Cătălin Vacarciuc found methods to change the teaching model.
I changed the method of teaching, learning, I try to make it more active, more interesting. Yes, we work with the textbook, no one has taken that out, yes, we work with the pen and the notebook, but I try to package this science more nicely.
Author: Cătălin Vacarciuc, history teacher
She does not run after success, and the only competition in which she participates is with himself. He wants to be always better, more interesting for students, to be able to give them the knowledge they will need in life, not just in exams and tests.
The most important thing is to be human. We are often told: be yourself. A criminal is himself. And one last man of the road, of bad moral quality, is himself. This is good? Not. The most important thing is to be human, and that means that you have a set of values, principles that guide you.
Author: Cătălin Vacarciuc, history teacher
Cătălin Vacarciuc is 23 years old and one of the youngest teachers in the Republic of Moldova.
***This report was filmed with the permission of the director of Liceu Teoretic “Onisifor Ghibu” from the city of Chisinau.
