by Carrie Suchy

Created on: May 13, 2008   Last Updated: May 16, 2008

Why Do We Teach?

It was my first interview nine years ago in a small district where I had just finished my student teaching experience. I was sitting on a panel of about nine administrators, each administrator taking his/her turn asking me questions regarding reasons why I thought I'd make a good teacher. One administrator turned toward me and asked, "Why did you choose to go into this profession?" Unprepared for the answer I reached down and grabbed my heart strings and said, " Not one day of my entire life have I ever heard my mother state the she did not want to go to work, I want to have a career that I love like she did....NOT A JOB!"

When I was a young child my mother taught 2nd grade at the grade school I attended in my community. I would to go down to her room during my recess time to help her grade papers and clean her room. I would observe my mother's relationships with her students and I would sit and admire her passion for what she loved to do, more than anything, which was to make a difference in each and every one her students.

Prior to the day I interviewed for my teaching job, I have spent countless hours at jobs where all I did was work. I would listen to people around me complaining about being "stuck" in their job. They chose "the easy way out," and accepted a job based solely on the amount of money it would bring in. I believe those people will spend the rest of their lives "working."

One of my favorite quotes that I just can't ever seem to get out of my mind is, "Once you find a job that you truly love doing, you will never work another day in your life." I have heard myself stating this quote so many times to people who are unhappy in their endeavors, it would be impossible to forget! I meet an immeasurable amount of people who just "count down" the hours until they get to go home from their job.

I am so happy I chose to teach. Like I predicted nine years ago, I embrace a career that I love every day. I never seem to get my students to their special classes on time because I am so caught up in what I love to do, I don't pay attention to the time on the clock. It is the opposite just watching the clock counting down the hours until I get to go home every day. It is being lost in the love of educating children that make it easy to forget who, and where, I am.. and that is the spirit of happiness that keeps me alive.

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