Why I Want To Be A Teacher

When I think of why I want to be a teacher the first thing that comes to mind is the teachers I had that showed me I was worth so much more than I once thought I was. I think of the teachers that were more like mentors and believed in me at a time I didn’t even have that belief in myself. I always enjoyed reading and writing and listening to poetry, and so, English was always an easy decision for my major. However, I wasn’t always sure what I wanted to do with it until I really started to look back on my life and thought about who helped me get where I am today. Of course, family and friends were a huge part of this, but then there’s the teachers, 1 in particular, who really helped push me and saw the potential in me even as a messed-up teenager. The reason I want to be a teacher is simple: because I want to be that teacher to my students. I want to teach them more than just literature, I want to teach them to believe in themselves, to shoot for the moon, and to never give up on their dreams or themselves. I want to show them the power of writing and the lessons that can be learned in books way past the content that would be on a test. School is such a huge part of a child’s life, so much of their time is spent in the classroom, in those halls, and it is important that it be a positive experience with more being learned than just the material in textbooks. If I can be a positive impact on a student in the ways my teachers were for me than I would consider myself having done a good job in my career. I want to inspire, push, and make my students comfortable and help push them in a direction to the future they deserve.