What do Police, Firefighters, Nurses, and Professional football players all have in common? They are all dream careers commonly listed by elementary school students. When I was in fifth grade I remember coming home and informing my grandmother that when I grew up I was going to be a teacher. As many parents do she responded by asking me why, I enthusiastically responded “I want to be just like Mrs. Higginbotham and teach people words like nincompoop!”
To this day I have not changed my mind. My reasons have matured from being astonished by vocabulary but my goal hasn’t. In hindsight I always liked to teach. I was the oldest sibling and turned our hallway into a classroom. When I was older I loved tutoring younger children.
I was largely inspired by Mrs. Higginbotham. She taught me many things. She showed me learning could be fun. She taught me that no goal was unattainable. She created a lifelong interest in literature. As a teacher she tried to find something for everyone, even those students who already claimed they hated school. I wanted to be able to create the type of learning environment that she did for other children. As I grew I had other significant teachers who helped me cement the idea that I wanted to be an elementary school teacher.
In high school I realized that all the teacher I considered truly good teachers had all the skills I wanted to learn. I wanted to be able to inspire students and work with them like many of my own educators had with me. The best teachers were good at explaining content, patient yet firm, fair, and set high expectations for all students. They were not unreasonable with expectations but they wanted to push their students to their full capability. Each teacher had a subject that they were most passionate about but they knew all the content areas well. These teachers are what I model the type of