The class has two weeks to go.
I started thinking. And in five minutes, I wrote. It was wonderful. I just starting typing.
In the comments, and possibly for another project, tell me why you teach.
I am going to put the whole text below, but here is the video I created (my professor hasn't seen it yet edit: my prof has now seen it):
I decided to become a teacher because I have experience that will benefit young people. Let me present that information from a different angle: I became a teacher because I was stuck in a job I didn’t like, taking a break and reading the newspaper, and saw an advertisement that said, “Are you stuck in a job you don’t like? Have you always wanted to be a teacher?” And I thought, “yes.” So I dove in.
And when I dive in, it’s full-steam ahead. I’m passionate. I care. I’m loyal. And I truly believe that every child can learn, and every child hopes to become better than their parents. And that’s a good thing. So I want to lead them. I want them to become involved in the world. I want them to become engrossed in their lives. I want them to be passionate.
What can I do? The same thing that every educator in the world can do. Teach. Advise. Mold. It’s a little bit of a power-trip to know that I can mentally push a student so hard that they become angry at me, only to become so thankful that they’ve been pushed that they break down at graduation and write me a letter more fluent and more thoughtful than any “History of British Literature” essay paper that was ever written during the 180 days-a-year I see her. And I can do it 30 times over.
And so I teach. I show students the dirt path, but I don’t pave the road. In the “real world” workers have to be able to be jacks and jills of-all-trade, even if all they do is as mundane and ineffective as memorizing something solely for getting it right on a test, the workers have to be able to relate and live socially. And I can help them learn those skills. What people forget is school is the real world. It’s 12 years of your life where you become who you are. It’s not a throw-away time that doesn’t matter. It matters.
A lot of what I’ve been saying is about me. But realize, none of this is about me. It is about the student. It is about the kid. The child. The learner. It’s about educators and administrators and faculty and parents that want to be involved in the growth of a seed into a flower. It’s not about graduating, it’s about growing. It’s not about getting to the next level, it’s about being prepared to learn for the rest of your life.
So why did I decide to teach? Because somebody decided to teach me 25 years ago. And that person decided to be passionate about it, and it resonated with me. And I wanted to do better than my parents. And I wanted to be better FOR Chambers, Lowe, Klocke, Tilton, Clarke, and Faris, Troutman, Bowman, and Hughes.
That’s why I teach. And that is my belief.
