#9: Is Teaching For Me?

     I have learned the full responsibilities of a teacher--especially those beyond the roles of teacher and grader. I have learned that grading takes a significantly longer amount of time than I had originally thought. In addition, planning lessons can take up more of your time, making it difficult to have time for yourself. I learned from my cooperating teacher that being a teacher can be very stressful. However, I learned that effort can lead a student to making progress that they may not have thought possible. The influences of a teacher can affect a child for the rest of his or her life, and change the way that he or she participates in the rest of his or her education.
     I have decided that I still want to be an elementary school teacher. I have decided that the pros to being a teacher still outweigh the cons. I have not decided on a desired grade yet, but I am drawn to third grade because of my SLP. I want to be a teacher because of the good that they can do in a student's life.
     The Service Learning Placement showed me first hand the difficulties and joys of teaching. It showed me how difficult it can be to manage a classroom when students have a lot of energy or are easily distracted. I was able to experience the importance of a schedule and the various activities that are done in the classroom. I also had the chance to watch students finally understand something that my cooperating teacher had been trying to teach them for a while. I was able to experience how fun it is to work one-on-one with students, and in groups, and get to know all of their individual personalities. Through the Service Learning Placement, I was able to see concepts that we learned in this class and decide what I thought of them in a more realistic setting.
     My next steps are to work on earning a few more credits before applying to the Education program. I want to do some hours in a few different classes, with different teachers and different grades. The goal of this is to better draw a conclusion of which grade I might prefer to teach in. I intend to try a few different schools as well, so I can develop an opinion of which schools I would like to teach in after earning my degree.