Why teach?
There are a million and one professions out there. Why would you want to teach?
Most people think of the benefits of teaching in terms of days off. If you're just looking for time off, become a tax preparer, where you work January 2nd through April 15th. That's a crappy reason to become a teacher. Most people don't even consider teaching, because they make little money given the amount of work that has to be put in. However, there are piles and piles of teachers, so why do they all do it?
Teachers recognize that one day the world will be run by people who are right now only five years old. They want to make sure that the right five year-olds are the ones running it. But how do you know which five year old is going to make the best president fifty years from now? So what do you do? You have to make every five year-old ready to take on whatever they need to do in their life. Whether that's running a country, or being a night manager at a convenience store, it's up to the educators to prepare them for that. That's why many teachers teach.
Teachers can be the embodiment of whatever they feel is important. They can teach kindness, ambition, wisdom, courage, tenacity, or any other of a dozen things. You can show these children how to act, how to behave, and how to care. All of that takes place while teaching important material too. Which brings me to my next point.
Material. Some teachers want to teach because they love what they're teaching more than actually teaching it. By constantly being involved in your material, you become much better at it. Also, it makes you strive to become better and better at it. There's always that threat that a student might one day come back and be better than you. Now, while this a good sign (see point one), it'd still be embarrassing.
However, all of these reasons are still not enough. In order to be a truly successful teacher, you have to care about the students above all else. You have to care about them enough to make it worth not making that much money. Students get out of a program what you, as a teacher, put into it, and it is therefore your responsibility to make it as rewarding for them as possible.
Also teachers get summers off which is nice.
Resources used:
This is an interesting chart that shows how having good teachers affects students.
All the Best,
-J
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