Why I Want to Be a Teacher Essay

By Sarah Haveman

Foundations of Education 2020

Jeff Jones

November 12, 2017

 I knew ever since I was little girl that I wanted to work with children. It took me until

about middle school to decide that I wanted to become a teacher because I’ve always enjoyed

working with the younger children, like two to three-year old’s, and I never thought about

becoming a teacher. I always thought that I would end up working in a daycare or preschool, but

I believe that becoming an elementary teacher would have so many more rewards for me. For

example, working in a daycare or preschool is almost like babysitting all day but in teaching you

get to help the students learn new skills and get them prepared for the next grade level. I believe

that this is the right career choice for me and I am extremely excited to start teaching.

My mom is the one who inspired me to want to be a teacher. She has always been so

involved in my life and she was the one who helped me make me decision to teach. My mom has

worked with children all throughout her life so at a very young age I was helping her at her work

and learning from her. She is so patient and understanding with the children, it made me want to

be like her. Watching her build the relationships with the children and how much she loved her

job really pushed me to want to work with children. I’ve always enjoyed working with children

even when I was child. Everyone would always tell me how I have a gift with children and when

I finally realized they were right, I knew that teaching would be the perfect job for me. My

family was very encouraging of my decision to be a teacher and they supported me a lot. Even

though I know working with children can sometimes be stressful, I want to be able to make a

difference in the students’ lives.

Some strengths that I can bring to the teaching profession is my patience and love for

children. I feel patience is a very important part of teaching because it allows for the students to

feel safe in the classroom. In order for students to learn, they need to feel like they are in a

positive and safe environment. One way to make them feel unsafe is by not being patient with
them and letting your temper get the best. All students are going to learn at different paces and

there will always be those students that are going to give you a hard time. As a teacher it’s your

responsibility to help each child to learn and to keep control over your emotions. Being a teacher

can be very stressful because the students don’t always want to listen to you but it’s your job to

come up with new ways to get the students engaged with what your teaching. It is very important

to have patience because as soon as a teacher loses control over their emotions, they lose trust

from the students. I feel this will be a strength for me because I have lots of patience with

children and I know how to not let my emotions get in the way of my job. I work at a preschool

right now and I work with the one, two, and three-year old’s and you must have patience when

you work with very young children. If you don’t have patience towards the students in the

classroom, they are going to feel disconnected to you as a teacher and they aren’t going to want

to learn or build relationships with you.

Another strength I can bring to the teaching profession is my love for children. I feel this

will be a strength for me because children want to know that you care about them and that you

want to have those relationships with them. If you have a teacher that doesn’t care about their

students, those children are going to know that the teacher doesn’t want to be there, and they are

going to give up on learning. As a teacher, I want to make sure my students feel safe in my

classroom. When the students enter my room, they are now my responsibility for the next eight

to nine hours and it’s my job to care for those children like they are my own. This will be a

strength for me because my students will be more willing to learn than those who don’t feel safe.

It will also help me to build relationships with my students, getting to know each of them

individually and being able to meet the needs of each student.

 One characteristic I feel I could improve on as I prepare for my teaching career is

enabling the students to much. My job as a teacher is to help the students to learn and I can’t do

everything for them, because then they won’t learn how to do it themselves. I must let them learn

how to do it on their own so in the future they will know how to do it. I need to find my balance

with when to help the students and when to let them figure it out on their own. I feel I will find

this balance when I watch teacher’s in their classroom or when I complete my practicum. For

me, I have always been the type of person to help a child when they are struggling or just do it

for them. I need to figure out when to help them and when to step back and let them do it

themselves. When I improve this characteristic, I will feel very prepared to be a teacher.

The intrinsic and extrinsic rewards of being a teacher are also very important to me. The

extrinsic rewards for being a teacher would be having the summer’s and holidays off, getting a

raise in salary, getting bonuses, and having job security. These are important to me, but not as

important as intrinsic rewards because I feel they are much more rewarding. The intrinsic

rewards of being a teacher would include making a difference in the students’ lives, having fun

at your job, and getting to work in an environment that is dynamic. The most important reward to

me would be getting to make a difference in a child’s life. If you have a child who is struggling

really hard with a certain subject and you can be the one to help them overcome it, you have

accomplished your goal of being a teacher. Another reward is building relationships with the

students and getting to know each of them individually. You never know what a student must go

through at home and if you can make it fun for them at school, then that is a reward. Having fun

at your job is also a big reward because we all know someone who hates their job and always

complains about it, but when you’re working with children, they always find a way to make you

laugh or smile. Even on the stressful days, you will always find joy from the students. The
positive outcomes that will happen in teaching will always outweigh the negatives outcomes that

will happen. The last reward of being a teacher is you get to work in a dynamic environment.

Being a teacher means you can decide how your classroom is run and if you don’t like something

then you can change it. Instead of having to do the same thing over and over every day, you get

to change it up and do different things every day.

Overall, I am very excited to start teaching one day. I believe that being a teacher is the

perfect job for me and I can’t wait to have my own classroom one day. Being a teacher for me is

all about getting to help my students learn and being able to make a difference in their lives.

Children will be influenced by your actions and I want to be a teacher that will influence my

students in a positive way and to be a positive role model to them. I want to have a safe

environment for my students, so they will want to learn and want to build a relationship with me.

I want my students to be able to be themselves in my classroom and have fun at school. I feel

being a teacher with have many rewards for me and I cannot wait to start teaching.