This is a video I made for one of my first semester classes. The purpose of the video for me was to reflect upon what led to my decision to become a teacher. When I tell people about my career plan, I get a few different responses. Mainly I get people saying things like,
“Ugh, I could never do that. Other people’s kids are so annoying.” or,
“Huh. Well that’ll be a good job. You’ll get weekends and summers off!” or just.
“Oh….why?”
I always struggle to answer that question, because it’s so hard to answer in a concise way. Yes, I like kids. And yes, I like the idea of having weekends and summers off. But honestly, teaching is such an intense job that I think anyone who gets into it for those reasons is not going to last long. All my life, I’ve only ever really had customer service jobs. Jobs where I’m easily replaceable, and where my work really affects no one in any meaningful way. The reason I want to become a teacher is because it’s important. It’s a job where I feel like I can actually make the world better. Sure, there’s always the off chance that one of my students will become the next Prime Minister. But when I say I want to make the world better, what I mean is that I want to be the one who is there for students who need extra support. I want to be the person who inspires a kid to love books and become a lifelong reader. I want to be the one who helps a student who thinks they “can’t do math” realize that they are actually great at math!
I want to be a teacher to help and inspire my students, and to trigger their creativity and eagerness to find what it is that they love.