The Importance of Being a Teacher

Career Research Paper
Giovanni Purpura
Mrs. Probst
English 1H/P 6/8
17 March 2014

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." This

quote by Nelson Mandela means that if one has the knowledge, they can do anything they want, even change the world. This relates a lot to being a middle school teacher because they have the power to change the world by teaching one student the things they will need for every day later on in life. Education has been around since prehistoric times, when young boys and girls got their practical education in the ways to hunt, gather food, and find or build shelter. When being a teacher, a person should have many skills including, patience, organization, and obviously the knowledge of the subject you are teaching. The tasks and duties a teacher needs to perform ultimately depends on the day but a teacher should know how to help the kids who need extra help, and always have their day planned out so there is no confusion. During the day, a teacher will teach about 5 classes of around 30 kids each, they will have a lunch break, and a time where they talk to other teachers about new methods of teaching the subject or some problems throughout the day. Some related occupations to teaching are, being a counselor, a librarian, a coach, and even an umpire. A middle school teacher’s job is to teach students through grades 5­8 and who prepares those students for their high school years.

The act of being a teacher has been around since the prehistoric period where cavemen

learned to hunt and build shelter. Even though that was where it began, education really started off around 5000 years ago, where the first methods of writing both words and numbers were invented. The first giant step in education occurred in Ancient Greece, where young boys began to study reading, writing, arithmetic, music, and even dancing. Instead of the young boys going to school, they would go to their teachers' houses for each subject. The knowledge of other

subjects developed shortly after that, and the first universities emerged to become the greatest universities even today. In America, the first public schools were established by law in
Massachusetts, 1647. In the 1900's, the schools built departments such as science, history, and geography to go along with the math, reading, and music made in Greece. Today in America, the schools are built to go along with the age groups of the children going to the school. So, as you can see, education has come a long way since the cavemen and Ancient Greece. (OOH)

Being a teacher requires many skills which include the ability to organize, patience, the

ability to talk and listen to children, and obviously the knowledge of the subject they are teaching. The ability to organize is vital to being a teacher because teachers need to have everything planned out, or everything put in place to have the children learn and to have a successful day of teaching. Being patient is needed for a teacher so they can give the students enough time to learn the needed material. Another reason that a teacher should have the characteristic of being patient is because they won’t feel the need to rush students who are falling behind. Being able to talk and listen to children is also important for a teacher because students should be talked to in a more childish tone and when listening to students, the teacher has to be very observant and have their ears wide open so the student can get their extra help, or so you can answer a question. Lastly, knowing the subject you are teaching is extremely important because if the teacher does not know the subject, they could be giving the student the wrong information needed to complete the unit. If the teacher does not have these skills, the teacher would not last long in the teaching industry.

The day in a life of being a teacher can vary in many ways.
“Middle school teachers teach four or five classes a day. For each class, which may include anywhere from 15 to 40 students, they prepare a lesson plan that includes the information they want to provide, as well as the assignments they will give out to the class. Often there is a government­mandated curriculum that they must cover, although the teachers decide how they will deliver the material and in what order they will cover the curriculum.”
The quote by Damon sums up the usual day for a teacher. Adding in lunch time, teachers’ meetings, and even study hall. Usually, the days in a life differ because of what the students do or say, but the days are not very simple. Maybe on Monday, the kids don’t like being talked to a lot because of the weekend ending, so the teacher needs to switch the routine to cope with the students. Also, the same thing may happen on Friday, where the students just want the day to get by so they can have the weekend to have fun, so the teacher can make their class fun so the students have a good time and the day would not seem that long. The general duties and tasks for being a teacher corresponds to the day in a life because they can be different every single day.
One day a teacher may have the duty of helping a kid through a personal problem, and the next day help with a math problem. Being a teacher has many related fields if the job is not there at the time. Some include being a teacher who teaches different age groups. Which are being a preschool, kindergarten, elementary, or high school teachers. Some other occupations that need the same skills a teacher needs are being a counselor, teacher assistant, education administrator, librarian, childcare worker, and even athletes, coaches, and umpires in baseball.

There are many benefits to becoming a teacher including the time that teachers get to spend with their students, seeing the children grow up, feeling special when the students smile, or when the teacher’s day works out, and the earnings. The time the teacher gets to spend with their students is so valuable to both the teacher and the student because they can both learn so much from each other. The student could learn how to get through a problem by watching the teacher do it, or the teacher could learn to trust, or just have a good smile and laugh everyday.
Seeing the children grow up is one of the most special things a teacher can witness because knowing that the teacher can impact the kids for their whole life, just makes everything seem more important. Also the teacher can watch the kids throughout the year and look at them at the beginning and the end and realize that what the teacher has said over the year, changed the actions of the students. Feeling special when the students smile may be the greatest sight during the day because a random smile by a student can spark the teachers’ flame and make the teacher feel so much better every single day. The earnings include $36,000­$82,000 a year with a national median of 52,000 dollars a year with no hourly pay. Some schools also offer the extra pay to sports coaches or to teachers who attend fairs, or school activities. The earnings are just a bonus to what a teacher can learn everyday from their students.
The negative aspects to being a teacher include very few items. The safety of the school and the increasingly demanding curriculum requirements. The safety of the school will impact the teachers’ day because they always have to be careful when walking through the halls so the teacher does not get hurt, or they have to be on the look out for kids getting in fights. The majority of schools have the protective system where teachers do not have to be cautious, but there are the slim number of schools that cannot control the fighting or the unsafe environment.

The demanding for curriculum requirements may have a negative impact on a teacher because teachers sometimes want to have their own plan and own way of teaching and the requirements will bend their way of teaching. During the end of the school year, schools have the big test to test the knowledge of what the students have learned throughout the year and the teacher could get frustrated trying to teach in the way the state wants them to teach. Overall, there are not many negative aspects to becoming a teacher, but the few can impact somebody a lot.
The method of becoming a teacher does not require many extra years of college, teaching does not require an internship but it is heavily expected if the teacher does just so they have a little bit of experience with the job, and major in the subject you are teaching. For becoming a teacher, a teacher needs to have a bachelor's degree, which is 4 extra years of college, a teacher would have to complete a teacher education program, which can be completed in almost every college, and have a state teaching license. Becoming a teacher does not require internships but they are heavily expected. Not every school has an internship program so that is the reasoning for it not being required. When becoming a teacher, you should major in the subject you want to teach so then the teacher would have background information on everything. The road to becoming a teacher is a tough process but in the end, it all works out.
My research has definitely made my decision to pursue a teaching career stronger because of all of the amazing benefits the teaching industry would give me. I like that the career pays a great amount of money for doing something that would be so much fun. I do not like that you have to get a bachelor’s degree but I understand why I would need one. I think I would fit into this career very easily because I have been told that I am good at helping people get through problems. I need to work on speaking in public, it is huge to be good at that because a teacher

always talks to the kids everyday, so I need to work on my public speaking. I also need to work on being more funny so I could make my students have a great time in my classroom everyday.
My personality would fit being a teacher because I am a mature person but I always have fun just without doing things that may hurt me in the future. Being a teacher would be one of the best things to happen to me in my life.