I'm sure many of you have experienced or been asked the question; "What are you going to school for?" or "What are you planning to do with the rest of your life". Personally, it took me a while to figure out what the answer to this particular question was. I attended a community college for two years before deciding that I wanted to be a teacher, and found myself really excited and set on this decision!! However, I don't know about the rest of you, but it seems that when I answer with "Elementary Education", the response I get seems to be negative. I almost always get the reply "you better not be planning to stay in Michigan", or "I hope you're ok with moving out of state", or my favorite reply has to be "Oh... I'm sorry" . I know that the state of the economy is not expecially good right now, especially in the education world, but this is what I have decided on as a career, and yes I know it is likely that I will have to move, and that I'm not going to be a millionaire, and that I am going to have to put up with kids, but I have obviously already thought all of this through and wouldn't have made this decision if it were an issue.
I really like this blog of yours! People often feel that they have to warn us or better inform us on the decision we have made to be teachers. They seem to forget that we are the ones having a great impact on the children that great impact neighborhoods and cities and eventually effect the world. They quickly forget that if it weren't for teachers they wouldn't be who they are. But I guess those things aren't what really matter anymore. People often quickly focus on the money that teachers make. But in my opinion teachers don't make bad money for the fact that we get summers off and plenty of breaks during the school year. Thank you for this post Hayley. I appreciated what you had to say.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ryan! I'm glad I'm not the only one that seems to get this negative reaction. I do love to remind people of all the vacation time that I will get along with pretty good benefits as well. However, I think that this negative attitude towards our future teachers has a lot to do with the lack of school funding, people seem to forget that we are preparing the future but complain how it is turning out.
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