All throughout my life I have been in the "education" environment. My mom was and is an elementary teacher and has always had the kind of fire and passion for teaching that kids immediately respond to. Naturally, you would think that I would respond with wanting to follow in my mother's footsteps and be a great and wonderful educator. Wrong. I couldn't have been more opposed to that idea.
During my teenage years I assumed I wanted to go into the medical field. How else would I help people and make a difference in the world? However, this notion was quickly aborted when I had a little incident while volunteering in an animal hospital. I found out very fast that the sight of any bodily fluid renders me unconscious rather quickly. After this embarrassing experience I was at a loss for what I wanted my career to be. I knew I wanted to make a difference in the world and I wanted to help others, but I just couldn't make the connection of how I wanted to do this.
Later, that same year, I joined a program in my high school called the Big Brothers and Big Sisters Program. This program allowed me to become a mentor to a younger elementary student. While being able to spend quality time with this student and help tutor and talk to them, I quickly realized how students need so much more than just a teacher to teach them. Students need love, affection, guidance, care, respect, motivation, and so much more, because you never quite know what is going on in a students life when they're not at school.
As I watched the student I was mentoring, loving, and motivating start to grow and change into a confident young individual, I started to make the connection with just how much you can impact a child's life and how this can ultimately change their future. This was when the seed of becoming a teacher was planted into my heart. The seed grew roots while I was volunteering to read at my local elementary school and absolutely adored it. The students were so interested and engaged in learning about the topics of my books, I became captivated by their enthusiasm. Lastly, the roots of my metaphorical seed broke through the soil and sprouted into a magnificent flower as I spent my summer as a camp counselor for Camp Sumatanga. Throughout the entire summer I led, mentored, taught, and played with kids of all ages. This was the final determinate of my future as an educator.
Now, I am more than sure that I want to be an Elementary Educator. I want to help create the next generation of lawyers, doctors, and maybe even the future president. As Malala Yousafzai once said, "One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world" and that is what I want to be a part of.
