Why do you want to be a teacher?

Recently in my Practicum class, we were asked to write professional statements, in preparation for future interviews and the like. The first part of it contained a section titled “Why do you want to be a teacher?

A dozens of reasons ran through my head- everything from good hours, to decent benefits, to receiving money in general, to getting the summers off... I'm reminded of that quote from the Breakfast Club "You took a teaching position, 'cause you thought it'd be fun, right? Thought you could have summer vacations off...and then you found out it was actually work...and that really bummed you out."

But of course these weren’t the real reasons- and as I began to seriously ponder, I traced back my path to this unique profession. Below, I include the first part of this professional statement and I encourage others to think over the same concept seriously, as it is the most basic and yet important question: Why?

Why I chose teaching as a career:

What do you want to be when you grow up? This question dominates the mind of every child in America and I was no different than any of the rest. We were taught, from a very young age, that we could achieve absolutely anything if we set our minds to it. But what should we achieve? What should our lives be about? The choices were all exciting, each profession amazing in their challenges and rewards- to be a movie star, a professional athlete, an astronaut, the President.

But after a while, the glamour began to fade as I thought of the reality. I pondered the uncertain future and took a deep hard look at each and every dream, unable to decide. I did what any other student did, I took the tests, I tried different things, I examined my strengths. What was I good at? What did I love?

I enjoyed many things, but reading and writing were on the top of the list. But I thought that there could never be an instance when I could take this love and make money off of it. I didn’t dare hope that my meager writing would ever be published in any way. And I couldn’t just spend my life analyzing good literature could I?

Only in the summer after my senior year did I realize that I could indeed… I could become a teacher. It was a position that was so often belittled and dismissed as unimportant or boring. It had certainly been ignored for the longest time by me. I will admit that I had never considered it before. It was something so common, so difficult, so unexciting.

Yet it was also something amazing. The more I thought, the more I realized how much I loved school and had enjoyed time within it. It dawned on me that I genuinely enjoyed teaching others- everything from the rules of Ultimate Frisbee to the order of Die Hard movies (arranged by best one-liners of course). I would love instructing the youth of the world about reading and writing. It may not have been the glamorous choice. It may have made my friends smirk every time I told them I wanted to be a high school English teacher. And of course, it may have ensured that I will be underpaid for the rest of my life. But by becoming a teacher, I will be performing a service. I will be acting as an advocate and guide. And I will genuinely enjoy being there for the youths of the world, leading them toward their own dreams, facing all the challenges that come with this task and reaping all the rewards that come from knowing you made a difference.