What many of you have heard before, but here you go...

Growing up I never thought that I wanted to become a teacher. I had wonderful teachers in school that were able to make class fun and interesting for me, yet I never wanted to be in their shoes. Growing up painfully shy, I thought that it would be terrifying to stand in front of 30 children having their eager eyes watch me, even worse to realize that there were 30 students who were fidgeting or falling asleep. It sounds like a nightmare in the same realm of arriving at school and realizing that you left your clothes at home, not a job for me.

Even though the idea of teaching scared me, I did love working with children and did many jobs and volunteer work around kids. With this in mind, I first thought to become a pediatrician. I soon realized that this would not be a good idea due to the fact that I pass out at the first signs of blood. Next I thought about becoming a child psychologist. This idea seemed more within my grasp. Working one-on-one, no blood; sounds great. So this is where I was when I began college. I took all of my required courses for a psychology major, emphasizing on child development and child psychology. When I finished all the available courses I threw in a couple education courses just to round out this “child centered” education.

After college I wanted to get right to the field of child psychology. I wanted to apply this information that I had spent the last 4 years (and a few tens of thousands of dollars) to get. I began working at a local therapeutic treatment center. I was trained in working with children, talking to them when they were upset, and how to restrain children when they were violent. I should have known right off the bat that I wasn’t up for working with violent children, but I did what I was taught, and stuck with it. I worked for a full year, acting the part of glorified babysitter, making sure that children (teenagers actually) were acting how we wanted them to and doing what we told them to do. It took 12 months of being cussed at, hit, punched, bit, and at one point, stabbed in the face, to realize that this was not my calling.

At this point I arrived at my first “quarter-life” crisis. I have all this knowledge about children, how can I use it? I have grown a lot as a person since high school and realized that the idea of standing in front of 30 children no longer terrified me, it actually sounded kind of fun.

So now I am arriving at my final week of my first "term" learning how to become a teacher and I am ready... Maybe not ready to be that perfectly great teacher in the classroom, but I am ready to put what I've been learning to the test and begin to hone my teaching abilities. I am so excited about doing this and ready to get into this life that will be draining, exhausting, fun, rejuvenating, make you want to pull out your hair and yell, laugh when you finally reach "that" kid, challenging, time consuming, creative, and overall a great way to spend the next 40 years. Watchout kids, here I come!