I say an emphatic YES. I have no regrets about choosing a profession I love and have loved since 1980.
When I hear people tell young people to not go into teaching it saddens me, because I think we need great teachers who love what they do. Of course there are things that are not so great that teachers have to do and yes parts of what teachers do are extremely difficult. There is no doubt about that, but it is still a wonderful profession that has many, many rewards.
The students are why we do what we do. We want to be part of their learning. We want to make a difference in their lives. We want to impact how they live their lives and contribute to society. So if anyone asks me if they should become a teacher I will say YES, YES, YES. I will tell them they have an amazing opportunity to be around and impact youth. No doubt there will be frustrations and work you don’t like to do, but the positives will so outweigh the negatives.
There are so many great things about being an educator:
- Working with students is number one
- Working with people who love what they do is number two
- Having choices to do a variety of jobs within a district…teaching at different levels, consulting, administration, counselling etc.
- Having the freedom to be creative every day
- Learning, learning, learning. If you are a teacher you are always learning
- So many, many more reasons
This is an exciting time in education. There will be many changes over the next few years and teachers will have the opportunity to work with youth differently while still impacting their lives in a positive way. I encourage you to find your passion and if it happens to be teaching both YOU and the students will benefit! So I say go ahead CHOOSE TEACHING.
Since 1991 I have been a School Counsellor and I believe teaching and School Counselling have been the best careers in the world. Everyday,I am grateful!
All you educators out there tell me why you would tell young people to go into teaching. Please share your ideas.
Counsellor Talk : Creative Collaborative Connections 
Hi Susan. Thanks for sharing. I like several things about your presentation. First, I like how you asked others about how they saw you as a teacher. And your philosophy of education became evident when the student that shared focused not so much on the content of what you’ve taught her, but what she saw you valued – putting students FIRST. Someone once said, “People won’t care about what you know, until they know how much you care.” That would be easy to get confused as a school counselor or as a classroom teacher. The relationships we have with each other in schools (and elsewhere) provides a place for social/emotional learning to take place, which in the end, is more valuable than any content will be learned. That has been lost in the U.S. in the K-12 arena, where the focus has been on pushing out content.
Second, I liked how you added in the Haiku slides as video and shared key snippets of what you believe. I’ve not seen anyone do that before and didn’t know it could be done. I guess you must’ve exported your slides as a .pptx, then exported the slides as images from PPT, then brought them into iMovie?
I liked how you ended your VLOG by not showcasing yourself, but your students, which reflects what is really important to you as an educator. We all need to keep that in mind. It’s about students…and I don’t mean that in a trite, overused way. It needs to be a core value/belief that drives the way we work as educators and relate to learners.
Glenn: Thanks so much for taking the time to share, I have always appreciated your reflections they are so thoughtful. I so believe we focus too much on content when content is readily available.
In regards to the decks, I did not export my slides as ppt ,but screen shot them and put them in as pictures then added the cc at the bottom when I made comments about the video. Thought that was the easiest way for me to do that.
As far as keeping the students first. I always ask myself what is in the best interest of the students when I have a difficult decision to make and I work at keeping that at the forefront of everything I do.