WHY DO I WANT TO TEACH?

This is an easy one for me: I love learning, and I love people! I spent a number of years with the goal of going into medicine, working in biology research labs studying cancer cells, mice, and fruit flies. It was interesting, it was cutting-edge, but I needed to get out of the dark room with the microscopes.

After being a teacher’s assistant for some college classes, I realized that I really love working with people! I loved putting myself into their shoes, and trying to help them understand a problem from where they stood. I loved being able to use the science knowledge I had, and explain it in a way that made sense to them. In short, my teaching career was born and I haven’t looked back since.

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I love helping my students grow, and I am a junkie for those “aha!” moments when something tough clicks! I remember my first year of teaching and I loved what I was doing, but I felt so down from those days it just didn’t go as I’d hoped. I decided I could have 90 bad teaching days for every 10 good teaching days. Thank G-d, with lots of work, re-evaluating, re-preparing, more work, and more learning, nearly 6 years later I can say that my good teaching days : bad teaching days ratio is MUCH better!

That doesn’t mean it’s easy! I think this is one of the hardest jobs on the planet, and every day I come home, burdened not only by the hefty stack of papers to grade, dozens of student and parent emails to respond to, lessons to prepare for the week, and lessons to evaluate and re-prepare based on how they actually went over, but also by the emotional weight of working with teenage girls and their “growing pains.” However, I love all my girls to pieces, and I feel privileged to share this burden with them as they grow and stretch their wings. I wouldn’t trade it in for anything.