"Becoming a Teacher"

Being an elementary school teacher is not for everyone, but for me, this has been my lifelong dream. I am currently a freshman elementary education major with a minor in psychology at Catholic University. I have to say, little me would be very proud of me for sticking with education.

Growing up with three younger brothers, I was constantly surrounded by young children. Whether it was a playdate where all my siblings had a friend over or going to my brother's games, I was never without at least two young children with me. My parents and friends' parents always entrusted me to watch over and care for the younger children. When I was lucky, we would be at my house where I had a small teacher set up with a whiteboard and desks. I would turn my babysitting into a chance to practice teaching. I would teach the young kids how to read and how to do basic math like adding and subtracting. Forcing my brothers to learn math was a constant occurrence in my house and I would get them to be my students by promising they would be in “above-grade” math the next year. I often mimicked the teachers that I had at school. I was very lucky to have formed great relationships with not only my teachers at my elementary school but the lunch ladies, custodians, and principals at my school.

My aspirations to become a teacher did not end in elementary school, and the next thing I knew I was taking teacher “career academy” courses at my high school. These classes helped prepare me for an internship I would take in my senior year where I worked as a second-grade teacher for an hour a day at the elementary school I had gone to as a young student.

The morning of my first day of field experience at Waverly Elementary School, all I could think was, my whole life dream of being a teacher could go down the drain just in this one afternoon. What am I going to do with my life, if I decide teaching is not the right path for me? I was crushed thinking of the possibility that all my years of playing school as a kid would have been all for nothing.

The colored posters, the cozy nooks, the bookshelves filled with adventures ready to be explored, all welcomed me into the room. Even now, I can still recall how nurtured I felt as a young second grader at this school.

Over the weeks I worked in the internship, one of the students I got to know best was Cooper. Cooper had a speech impediment and was academically behind the rest of the class. The first time I met Cooper, we were doing a writing assignment. The class had 20 minutes to work on the assignment, and when I walked in, Cooper still had nothing on his page. While he sat looking blankly at the paper, I asked him what he did that weekend. I discovered that asking him questions about things he enjoyed, like how his favorite sports team, the Ravens, did, would pull him out of his shell and would eventually get him something to write about. I noticed that now not only was he completing the work, he was enjoying it.

After a few more weeks of working with Cooper in writing each day, our relationship reached the point that when I walked into class, I would always see a huge smile on his face. One day he was excited to show me his writing journal.  He shared that he had written a three-page creative writing all on his own. I was so proud of him and it was a big realization that my desire to be a teacher meant there would be many more rewarding moments like this in my future. 

I learned that the process of teaching a child a new skill can be tedious, but in the end, it is always worth it. Cooper showed me that with time and patience, I can make a difference in students' lives.

I am thankful for my field experience of working in a classroom and the reassurance it brought to me that teaching is the right career path for me. It gave me experience of what it will be like in the real world as a teacher, not just the pretend school I would force my brothers into as a child. I look forward to this teaching journey I am embarking on as a college student and can’t wait to see where it will take me.