Growing up, I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. Sure, at age nine I also had other ideas for my life: a singer, an actress, and an artist (all very original ideas), but teaching was always in the back of my mind. My school experiences, positive teacher relationships, and a desire to help people also had an influence on my career choice, making teaching my dream job.

 I have a love of reading and when I was younger, would read almost nonstop. Anywhere I went, a book went with me. I have three younger siblings and I loved reading stories to them. I remember bringing home library books and us kids would sit on the couch as I read my new books to them. I loved how engaged I could make them by using different voices and tones. I also played school with my sister because I loved learning and I wanted to share that passion with her. Playing the role of a teacher turned out to be fun and it gave me so much respect for my own teachers. One day, while playing school, my sister and I sat down and we read a book together, Pete the Cat and His Brand New White Shoes by Eric Litwin, it was my sister’s favourite, which means we read it a lot. So much in fact, that my sister, who was three years old at the time, memorized the book. She then saw those same words in other books and began to read. That was the book that made me want to become a teacher because I saw how excited she got when she understood what the lines on the page said.

I enjoyed my time in elementary school, but when I entered high school, I found a few teachers I genuinely looked up to, the first being Miss Henderson. Miss Henderson was a first-year teacher during my ninth-grade year. She taught my class social studies and I feel she did a wonderful job teaching us students the curriculum, while also finding ways to make it fun and up to date. I look up to this part of her teaching because you want kids to find something they can relate to, by giving modern day examples of what we were learning from our textbooks. As my years in high school went on and Miss Henderson no longer taught me, we had a more “friend like” connection. This was nice as she shared some of her experiences with teaching and university with me. I also liked Mrs. Garnier’s approach to teaching. She was my psychology, cooking, and life transitions teacher during my junior and senior years. She always found ways to make her classes and projects enjoyable and always made an interesting introduction to each lesson using personal stories about her family. She always gave out self-care tips and would let us go outside for walks if the weather was nice. She knew the importance of self-care and its relationship to mental health, and she was always there if you needed someone to talk to. I look up to Mr. Greening’s teaching style. He was my English teacher from freshman to junior year and was my history teacher during my senior year. He always picked books he enjoyed reading and we got into deep class discussions about the chapters we were supposed to have read. He gave out good notes, used pictures, videos and movies, and even acted out important or funny scenes in the books or plays we were reading. I want to teach like him as he kept the class engaged and you can tell he enjoyed the material he was teaching, which made it more enjoyable for us as students. Teachers just want to see their students succeed, in all classes. Teachers at my school would offer to help you with assignments, even if they weren’t assigned in their class. I think that is a good policy to have, especially in smaller schools like mine, where the teacher doesn’t have as many students to look after. 

 One of the elementary teachers at my school had the chance to go to Africa for a few months. Her sharing her experiences has really inspired me to make a difference, not only to my corner of the world, but to kids in other countries. I think it would be a valuable experience to teach in other places as it would show me how lucky I was to have a good education, I would be able to help kids, and I would be able to learn more about other cultures firsthand. Teaching has always been what I wanted to do, and I believe that education should be made accessible to everyone. I want to make a change in my students’ lives, and I know that by teaching, my students will make a change in mine. School should be a place where kids feel safe and enjoy spending their time. 

            I love learning, whether it be firsthand like going to museums and on tours, or in class learning about history and social studies, psychology, and sometimes even math. I also love seeing kids grasp new ideas or concepts too. Teaching is a way I can combine both learning and helping to enlighten kids on the world of education. People have always said I should become a doctor or lawyer because of my grades, but money isn’t everything to me. I want to join a profession that I know I will enjoy and where I know I can make a difference. That is why being a teacher is my dream job.