The Answer - A blog about Education, Preparation, and Commitment.

Four Reasons you will love being a teacher at YES Prep

February 16, 2011 by Nella Garcia

February is the month of love, Valentine’s Day now come and gone and whether or not you buy into the holiday, I’ll use the Cupid theme as an opportunity to provide some ideas about why I love(d) being a teacher at YES Prep – maybe you might want to fall a little in love with teaching too!

Love Potion No. 1
Teaching is hilarious. When you are a teacher, there is a never ending array of student funnies that await you daily. Kids are people and people have idiosyncrasies that surprise, amaze and make you smile on the rainiest of days. I can still laugh with my colleagues about some of the antics of past students. If you are getting ready to be a teacher, get ready to hear, see and experience some of the funniest moments of your life. AND, you’ll always have someone to share the laughs with, which leads me to …

Love Potion No. 2
Other teachers. The people you will share your teaching experiences with will fulfill your life. They will cry with you on your worst days, laugh with you when you need the chuckle, and support you when you need it most. I started teaching with Katie Norwood, the ELA Middle School Content Specialist, and the memories we have from our first year, or the “School of Hard Knocks,” as she calls it, will last forever. Every teacher at YES Prep has a long list of people that have made their work fun, doable and rewarding.

Love Potion No. 3
If you have a creative side, teaching is for you. There are so many opportunities in teaching to experiment, imagine, create and develop. If you have an affinity for decorating, you will have a classroom with walls, ceilings and floorspace to fill with visual stimulation that will make your students love to learn. If you enjoy the art of theater, every time you teach a lesson, you can take the stage. Just ask one of my groups of sixth graders (now tenth graders) about Grammar Girl. Even if you like to create systems or procedures, there are an endless amount of those needed to make a classroom run smoothly. With teaching, the possibilities are truly endless for a creative mind.

Love Potion No. 4
Finally, one can fall in love with teaching because of what you give to others. I describe why I loved teaching so passionately in that I felt so rewarded when I was able to give my students something they didn’t have the day before. Whether that be learning a new skill, opening their minds to a new idea, motivating them to try a little harder, believe a little more, experience something new or go somewhere different; every day I felt like I had given them a gift. Today, I no longer have my own students, but I am fortunate enough to share with teachers what I have learned along the way. I love that, too.

I once saw a teacher mug that read, “3 reasons I love teaching: June, July, and August.” I remember scoffing at that mug. There are some REAL reasons to love teaching and they don’t involve time off during the summer. They involve the day to day hard work that it takes to foster learning in our students. Those of us that have given our lives to this work do it because of a red, hot passion for changing the status quo. And by the way, our teachers are getting it done in the classroom by the start of August.

If you aren’t already smitten with teaching, think about devoting your talents to this work. The students, colleagues and experiences will not disappoint.

Why do you LOVE being a teacher?
 

--
0 Comments
Be the first to leave a comment