Passion for Teaching: A Qualitative Study

This article reports on an investigation into passion for teaching, a complex and demanding profession. Three relevant themes emerged: choosing teaching as a profession; growing the passion for teaching and sustaining passion for teaching. An interpretive study was conducted during which fieldworkers collected the data. These fieldworkers qualitatively interviewed teachers at schools. Majority of teachers interviewed indicated that extrinsic motives were dominant determinants for teachers to choose teaching as a profession. A flexible framework is proposed to accommodate the different realities to recommend how to grow and sustain a passion for teaching.