my own food for thought: teaching; career option, or not?

For the last nineteen years of my life thus far, my mom has been an elementary school  teacher. I've spend countless hours at school with her, from the time I was young, and even until now, as a college student. And the thing is, one thing hasn't changed--I love being in the classroom. When I was in elementary school, mainly kinder to second grade, I went to school with her and enjoyed the time I spent with her students because I was her age. But even now, as a nineteen year old, I enjoy it all the same because I love working with kids. The more I think about it, the more I realize how being in the classroom and watching my mom teach her students these last so many years has allowed me to see that I really do desire to pursue teaching. I've known that if there was any job I wanted in the world, it would to be a teacher. I love kids and I enjoy the classroom setting, and I've always wanted to chase after this teaching career. But today, teaching isn't what it used to be. I see that teaching has become a lot of babysitting leading to less opportunities to actually teach the kids. I see that our world doesn't value teachers for their hard work and effort in investing in the lives of their students (or at least for teachers that do work hard and care for the well-being of their students.) I see that teaching is no longer a stable career, but rather one that comes with the risk of being pink slipped due to lack of tenure. My mom says that I'd make a great teacher, but she has told me that there's so much that you have to invest in order to be a teacher today. She tells me that it's no longer what it used to be, and that teaching has changed, and that it is sometimes no longer worth it.

I'm entering my second year at Irvine, and I'm currently studying Business Econ, but I always have the thoughts of education in the back of my head. I know I have these wild dreams of one day doing marketing, advertising, or PR for a media company or something like that, but then I think simple again and revisit the thought of perhaps pursuing teaching in the future. Not sure where my degree will lead me right now, but I hope that I'll find a job that I enjoy and love, and that it will be a place where I can invest in the lives of others. Definitely not clear with where God is leading me post-college, but as it always is, where He leads I will follow.

|| joyce ||