This is the start of a new series to help guide people thinking about becoming a teacher and those that follow through and are going through their first year. These blogs will be mixed in with other content and hopefully offer insights and thinking points for everyone. So if you know someone considering education at any level please share it with them!
First things first (I'm the realest), you have to decide to become a teacher. How do you do this? This question gets answered differently by everyone. Some people seem to come out the womb ready for the classroom and some people do not find it until after other career options. Like most little kids, I wanted to be a professional athlete (specifically a pro baseball player) but as I got older I got lost interest in that idea. I thought about being a plastic surgeon for a time but decided the margins for error in someone's face were a little more stressful than I wanted. After that, I really wanted to go into marketing. I liked advertising and the manipulation tactics used to get people to buy stuff. I teach some of these tactics as a warning when I cover personal finance in my economics class. That option never truly took hold like teaching. I did not really think about becoming a teacher until late in high school. I always liked school and I was good at it but it never occurred to me to stay. It was not until about junior year when I realized that a lot of people asked me for help on their work and that I felt good when I helped them understand. This coupled with my golf coach/US government teacher and I was highly motivated to get into the classroom. KP was my coach and teacher and taught different than any other teacher. His class was a senior class and taught us as such. How I run my class today is a reflection of how he ran his. Since end of junior year of high school, I have wanted to be nothing else (except maybe a secret billionaire but I would probably still teach.) The key question to ask when thinking about becoming a teacher is why?. Find your why and you will find your way. My why is to help prepare kids to be adults and function on their own. Our education system has major gaps in this aspect. We do not teach "adulting," but I try to as much as possible. As you toy with the idea of teaching you will have a lot people questioning and discouraging you; listen but be not deterred. You will hear a million times that it is impossible to make money in education. While you are unlikely to make millions, you will make a difference.
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AuthorKyle is a 34 year old teacher that loves James Bond, history, donuts, and sneakers. Archives
February 2021
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