Before you sit back and judge me a little bit harder about my career path, I'm going to start off by saying that I am not scared that I can't be a teacher. Enough people have validated that for me. I know I can get the job done. I've wanted to be a teacher since I started school. The subject matter that I would teach changed as I got older, but the profession itself always stayed the same. That is one of the reasons why it was so easy to pick my major for college, simply because I have wanted this for so long. I was five years old playing "school" in the backyard with the neighbors and being the "teacher" for my little sister and her friends when they came over to play. Teaching has always been a passion of mine and something that I always saw myself doing, but once I got into college and started my first Introduction to Education class did I see exactly what a teacher did.

I am scared to be a teacher because I am molding the minds of America's youth.

I used to joke around that I am going to be a molder of young people's minds when I grow up, but just talking to other college education majors made me realize just how true that is. Most people end up going into teaching for one of two reasons: they either had amazing teachers and they want to be just like them or they had terrible teachers and they want to be the exact opposite. In either scenario, these college freshmen are being persuaded by the actions of a teacher(s) that they had in the past. Almost everyone in my Intro to Education lecture hall had a story about a teacher that inspired them. As a teacher, I have the opportunity to change a student's thinking with a single sentence, whether that is positive or negative. That is terrifying.

I'm scared to be a teacher because what if I'm not good enough.

No one goes into a career thinking that they are going to fail. At least most people. The scary thing about teaching is that if you fail as a teacher, your students also fail. One mess up can impact at least 20 students in a single class and multiply that by roughly 5 or 6 classes if the mess up is consistent and you have successfully just tainted the knowledge of at least 100 to 120 students. Teachers are not perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination, but you have to be on your A-game to help funnel questions and to make sure that your students are getting the most out of your lessons.

I'm scared to be a teacher because I want my students to love learning as much as me.

Not every student is going to walk into my classroom and love literature. Not every student is going to walk into my classroom and love school. More times than not, most students would probably want to be anywhere but my classroom. I loved school and learning, that's why I volunteered to go to school for four more years to be placed right back in high school to teach until retirement. I enjoy it, but not everyone does. There are some things that can't be forced and a love of learning is one of those things.

I'm scared to be a teacher because I can make or break a child's day or life.

As a teacher, I have the opportunity to kill or make a dream. A student could love literature for years and get to my class and get a couple bad grades and completely change their dream of being a writer, or someone with potential can walk through my door and realize their talent. That is obviously on a bigger level, but on a smaller one, a good grade can make a student's day while a bad one could ruin it. Let's also not forget that if a student doesn't do well on an assignment or test, more times than you would think, the blame is thrust upon the teacher for being too hard or having test questions that didn't make sense or any other excuse in the book.

I'm scared to be a teacher because I want it so badly.

Like I've said, I wanted to be a teacher since I stepped foot in a classroom. I want this. I want all the responsibility and all the pressure and all the Common Core standards and tests and paperwork and supplies and meetings and lesson plans and projects and speeches. I want it all, but I'm scared that I might be blinded by how much I want it. I want to be the best teacher a student could have. I want students to be praying that they get me for class when they pick up their schedules in August. But what if I can't do that and I turn out to be the teacher that students pray that they don't have? I'm not sure how I would take that.

At the end of the day, I'm always going to want to pursue my dream of being a teacher, but all the pressures that come with the job are something that I will work on for the next three years of my collegiate career. Being a teacher is definitely more than just standing in front of tired students, who are daydreaming about being anywhere but your classroom, and reading off some slides to meet a standard. Teaching is about connecting with students to make sure that they are able to gain more knowledge than what they previously had. The stress of the job is enough to make anyone scared.

Then again...