Week 3: Why do you teach? Why math? How did you get into teaching? What is your drive?
We have all experienced that conversation, you know where you meet someone and the person asks about your profession. I never know how to respond. I have two answers, a short one and a long one. I feel out the person before giving out my answer.
Short answer: I wanted to make a difference in the lives of others. I was always good at math in school. I knew a career that involved numbers and working with people would be the perfect job for me. That's why I am a math teacher. I teach high school, because I enjoyed my high school experience
Longer answer: For years (middle school-junior year of high school), I wanted to go into accounting. Seriously. That was my ambition, and I wanted to ultimately be a CFO. Even though I was always good at math, I never really liked math class. This changed my freshmen year of high school. Ms. B was the best math teacher I ever had until then (she was only surpassed by my mentor/"math mom"). I loved all of my high school math classes. Fast forward to junior year. I lost my grandpa, and my outlook on life changed. I lost my ambition to make money and become a CFO. I signed up for the future educators class my senior year, and that class confirmed my decision to go into teaching. One week after graduating, Ms. T (mentor/"math mom") called my house and asked if I wanted to be her teacher's assistant for a summer math program for incoming freshmen. I'm still working with that summer program to this day, but now as a teacher.
And that's basically a good jist of why I became a high school math teacher. It's been a good journey! :)
Thanks for sharing both answers! I started college in the business school. I soon learned that business school wasn't the school for me because I wasn't that interested in making a lot of money for myself or anyone else. Then I switched into economics. It felt a lot less greedy, but I got turned off when I learned about macro-level equations that represent the actions of a lot of individuals. It made the world feel too impersonal. Finally I switched into education, and I couldn't have been happier. It took a long time to figure it out, but my ambition all along had been to work in a field where I could help people. College became a lot more exciting once I found a degree I was excited about.
ReplyDeleteYay! Nice to know I'm not the only one who was on a business track.
DeleteLol! Strangely enough, I wanted to be an accountant as well. Bout my uncle talked me out of it. My default answer is always the short answer.
ReplyDelete