A culture of negativism in modern society is a drawback to alluring productive and effective teachers into the profession. In a time when permissive child bearing and skeptic parents prove only to be a distraction, why might I want to be a teacher? There are the summer vacations, the weeknights and weekends off and the more than gracious compensation, but there is also a reason that may not seem as genuine as a teacher should be. The field of education is, although as susceptible to lay-offs as any other job, a consistent and reliable job opportunity. I do not plan on becoming a teacher after I leave college. I do not plan on becoming a teacher for a number of years after I leave college. I plan on writing. The teaching profession, once certified, holds an opportunity unlike most professions in that no matter what the city, no matter what the town, there will always be a school. Teaching holds the rare opportunity of movement and flexibility that may be needed according to other people’s needs rather than my own. Writing is a selfless field and depending on a marital status or a nomadic status, teaching will exist wherever I am taken to. The hours that are associated with teaching present a unique opportunity to allow myself to write as well as have a full-time job. Writing may be a personal endeavor but to be a teacher, to me, must be nothing short of communal.
Hostile children, and even more hostile parents, may be a deterrent for most but the challenge of rendering both harmless is one I feel I could more than handle. Children do not scare me. Aggressive parents are more comical than threatening. I believe, as Bill Gates once said, “schools are obsolete.” I believe this to be true in techniques of teachers, classroom technology and school system structures. Teachers have been deprived of methodology that may be unsatisfactory to parents. Bluntly put, the parental systems of America are in a decline and have directly effected the teacher and student system. I feel like I will bring a different, yet effective, style of teaching that may challenge certain standards. I don’t feel like the education systems in America can maintain a philosophy shrouded in 1960s regiments. Just as schools must be adapted to modern times so too must teachers and I feel like I will help to usher in this new teacher mentality.
Amongst the most pleasurable things in my life is literature. To teach literature and share my enthusiasm for the written word with others could only prove beneficial. Whether it is Kurt Vonnegut or William Shakespeare, Ernest Hemmingway or Charles Dickens, there is an electricity that can be felt from a sentence. The value I feel teaching has long been proposed to offer would most notably be felt in this capacity. There has been, as with every other student, a teacher that resonates in my mind who inspired me as I could only hope to inspire others. The passion that a teacher must have is palpable and the only thing I feel as passionate about is literature. Being financially compensated, without regard for numbers, is more than enough reason to enter into the field. Classrooms are too static and too drab with students sitting in a chair while teachers speak to them. I would bring a communal sense of learning that would focus on the student’s interaction and social systems with guiding help from myself. Instituting new ideas of teaching and testing these different techniques are what draw me to teaching.
Rebellion is a catalyst for any man and I am no different. I find a chance to express myself in a way in which no other job would allow. Teaching will eventual find its way into my life as I find it to be a point in which the much clichéd “settling down” will occur. Until then, I feel it is necessary to gather life experiences and chase down any other dreams. A man can only live on little wage and boxes of pasta while chasing his dreams for so long and should only have to attempt it while he is young. After that? That is when I will hope to inspire a child to maybe achieve what I never could. And that is fine with me.
