Watching people’s reactions when I tell them that I am a 7th grade English teacher is one of the funniest things ever. Their reactions are then often accompanied by “oh you brave soul” or “God Bless you” or something along those lines. Teaching is something that I have always wanted to do. I pictured myself in a lower elementary classroom teaching children their alphabet and how to tie their shoes, but here I am partway through my second year molding the minds of 12 and 13 year olds. Some days are harder than others, but I honestly wouldn’t trade my hardest day as a teacher for a day working anywhere else. (Unless it was as a Disney Princess).

I’m a strong believer that you don’t choose to be a teacher. The lucky ones who get to work in this profession are born to teach. In order to be successful in our field, you have to be teaching for all the right reasons. The right reasons do not include because you get the summers off (which is extremely untrue, we are always working), or because it’s a perfect “mom job” and you’ll have all the school vacations off, too. Teachers certainly don’t become teachers because of the ginormous paycheck, either.

Teachers spend countless unpaid hours making lessons plans that differentiate for all learning abilities while still aligning them to the curriculum, grading papers and projects, writing emails to parents, and worrying about the wellbeing of their students and whether or not they got dinner that night. They spend their own personal money on things to make their classroom more interesting and to give their students the best learning experience they can. They come into this career knowing all of this, yet don’t even bat an eye because this is exactly what they want. This is what they live for.

I teach because of the “I finally got it” moments. The moments when a student can understand something that once seemed impossible to them. I teach because as sad as it is, sometimes school and my classroom are the only safe places for some students. I teach, not to raise standardized test scores, but to make connections and hopefully make a difference in the lives of the children that I spend my days with. I’m selfish in the fact that I teach because of the incredible high that I get when Joey can finally tell me the difference between a noun and a verb, or when Kyle uses a simile AND a metaphor in his story. Seeing success in my students makes me feel like I am on top of the world. I teach because my students are friggin funny and keep me sane and drive me nuts all at the same time. I teach because being Miss Cox is one of my favorite things to be.