the teaching gene

I remember my senior year of college being a busy lady. I was student teaching, tutoring, and filling out job applications like it was my job. I kid you not that I applied for probably close to or even more than 100 school districts in my surrounding areas. Teaching jobs are pretty scarce these days, so sticking out in a crowd is difficult to say the least.

I spent hours upon hours formulating delicately thought out answers to my application questions — all having to do with student learning, how I would handle certain classroom situations, and how I would get involved in the district if I were to get a job there. Despite it all, I knew that no matter what I wrote down on my application, the inevitable question would arise in any interview question — the one question everyone seems to ask, yet no one seems to know how to answer off the top of their heads. Luckily, I had a great mentor who gave me a list of 100 possible interview questions, and I would be lying if I told you I didn’t spent hours every night going over each one, thinking and role playing my answers out to my stuffed bears. And now you’ll have to excuse me because I just admitted to having stuffed animals in college.

What is that question, you ask?

What made you decide to become a teacher?

All of the answers to this question seem so… well, lame.

Uuuhhh, I like kids? Hanging out with kids all day seems like a lot of fun? I’ve always had to listen to other people talk and now I want to listen to myself?

The funny thing is that I went on only three interviews while I was looking for a job, and all three districts asked me that exact question. Boy oh boy, did I have an answer for them.

Teaching is in my genes.

That, was what I would start out with. Because really, teaching has to be in your genes. Your genetic makeup. You have to literally feel a calling and have a passion to teach day in and day out every day. Okay, maybe you don’t have to — but to honestly be a passionate teacher who loves waking up every morning and hanging out with 20-something children each and every day, it certainly helps.

As far back as I can remember, I was always playing school. I loved school. I loved learning. I was one of “those” kids. But it takes a lot more than loving school to be a teacher.

When I was in high school, I wanted to delve into many different professions. So many paths sounded fun and do-able that I wanted to try them all out. First, I wanted to be a chiropractor. Then, I wanted to be a children’s psychologist and work with children who have life threatening illnesses. Teaching was always in the back of my mind, and I kid you not — the money is what always held me back from following my dreams.

I actually enrolled in college as a psychology major after taking numerous psychology courses in high school. However, there was a nagging voice at the back of my mind that kept telling me not to worry about the money.

To follow my dreams.

To do it for the children that I could possibly impact for the rest of my life.

Therefore, even before I headed off to my first semester at ISU, I changed my major to Elementary Education without a second thought. My family made fun of me for changing my major so early on, and I am sure my parents were crossing their fingers that it would be a precedent to my next four years. Don’t worry folks, I graduated in four years and could have even done it in three if I didn’t want to participate in a year long student teaching program that was offered at my university.

So why did I do it?

Because when you think back to your childhood experiences, more often than not, you remember a teacher. Maybe it was a bad teacher, who made your school year hell — to this day, you still remember that experience, don’t you? I know I experienced a teacher like that — a teacher who was unethical, mean, and downright undeserving of their job. Maybe it was a school year that you can’t quite remember — because well, nothing really stuck out. I promised myself I would never be that teacher. That all of my students would always remember their year with me even if that meant doing something silly to make them all laugh during the middle of a lesson.

I am absolutely certain that there is a teacher that you look back on your time spent with him or her and you smile a smile so big from all the great things that teacher taught you. If there was a time where you could meet this teacher again, you would smother him or her with hugs and thank them for inspiring you and teaching you and loving you for exactly who you were in the moment of your life they were a part of. Heck, maybe you still go back — all these years later — to thank that one teacher for believing in you when no one else did.

I want to be that teacher.

There is never a doubt in my mind that I chose the right profession for my life. I am sure you would all agree because whenever I write about teaching you all notice just how passionate I am. Every fiber of my being is nurturing, loving, firm, and encouraging — it’s just who I am.

I want every child to know how smart they are — how much potential they have — and that they can do anything they set their minds to. Because believe it or not, they might not believe it. Their families might not believe it. But, their teacher believes it.

Watching a child learn something new — something that was difficult for them to achieve, is far greater than a larger paycheck I may have gotten from a different profession.

So, I didn’t become a teacher so I could play with children, hear myself talk incessantly because no one else would listen to me, or because I thought it would be fun and easy.

I do it for the kids — for the future doctors — for the future leaders — for the future teachers, who might look back one day and think about their fifth grade teacher who believed in them when no one else did and worked hard to know they would go somewhere in life.

That, my friends, is why I became a teacher.

Tagged as: choosing a profession, teaching, why i became a teacher