PODCAST AUDIO

The speaker, Ellie Pullman, shares her journey of deciding to become a teacher. As a child, she had a passion for teaching and would create her own classroom. In her teenage years, she considered becoming a nutritionist but realized she disliked science classes. She then began babysitting and fell in love with working with kids. This experience made her revisit her childhood dream of becoming a teacher. She became a teacher's assistant in senior year to confirm her passion and found it to be a challenging but empowering experience. She chose to become a teacher because she has always wanted a helping profession, connects well with children, has the patience and perseverance required, enjoys planning and grading, and wants to help all students reach their full potential. Hi, and welcome back to Teacher Stories. My name is Ellie Pullman, and today I will be telling my story on why I decided to become a teacher. Thanks for tuning in, and I hope you enjoy the episode. So I know there's a lot of controversy right now around the teaching profession and whether it's worth it or not, honestly, just with the low pay and the amount of struggles that teachers have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. And I'll admit I've had my concerns in the past about this, but I'm going to be telling my story on how I ultimately came back to wanting to become a teacher. So I'm going to start this story from my childhood when I was obsessed with becoming a teacher. I mean, I would force my little sister to be my student every day after school. At the end of every school year, I would beg my teachers to give me any unused homework or worksheets, lesson plans, anything that I could use in my basement classroom. And even when I had free time, I would go on the website BrainPop, and I would create my own lesson plans. Now we turn the page to, I'm getting older, I'm in about 8th to 10th or 11th grade, and I start getting really into nutrition and the way that food affects our bodies. And so then I started thinking, well, I'm sure if I was a nutritionist or a dietician, I would make much more money than being a teacher anyways, and it would still be something that I enjoy. So why not? I'm going to abandon this teacher idea. That was just for when I was a kid, and I'm going to become a nutritionist. Fully devoted to this idea, in sophomore year, I took chemistry, and in junior year, I took anatomy. And that made me realize that not only am I bad at it, but I hate science classes. So I was right back to square one. I didn't know what I was going to do anymore with my profession. And keep in mind, I'm at junior year at this point, so I need to start making up my mind because that's going to determine whether or not I'm headed off to college in a year. So with this worry in mind, I'm going into my junior year, mid-junior year, and someone from my church approaches me and asks me to babysit for a community group. Throughout my teen years before this, I had babysat on and off, and I never really got a steady gig. So I saw this as an opportunity for one, and I took it, and I thought, why not? So I begin this job, I'm watching 10 kids by myself every Wednesday night. And that sounds like a nightmare to many people, but it opened my eyes like nothing else had before, and I just fell in love with those kids. And I started taking every single babysitting gig that I could possibly find. So midway into junior year, I am really into babysitting. I'm babysitting at least three times a week, and then that goes into the summer, and that translates to me babysitting even more with more time on my hands. At this point, I know that I want my job in the future to be something working with kids. I love them too much, and I connect with them too much for me not to make this my profession. That is when I revisit the idea that I thought was just a childhood, little, short-lived dream, like being a pop star or something. But I realize that it was much more than just a little dream, but it was my passion and my calling. So going into senior year, I knew that I wanted to be an elementary school teacher. But I'm still a big planner, and I need to check all the boxes before I fully dedicate to something. So I asked a first-grade teacher in the same district as my high school if I could be her teacher's assistant for the school year. I wanted to know that this was what I really wanted to do before I spent a lot of money preparing to do it at college. Luckily, the teacher got back to me before the school year started, and she said yes to me being her teacher aide for the whole 2022-2023 school year. Throughout the year, I graded papers, and I filed, I helped the students with their work, and I even taught daily spelling lessons in the classroom. I will say this experience opened my eyes to the real perseverance and patience that it takes to be a teacher. But never once did it make me doubt my choice. It actually made me feel strengthened and empowered to take on this difficult job. So, why did I choose to become a teacher? Obviously, I've always wanted a helping profession. I mean, a nutritionist is even one. And then I learned how much I connect with children and how much they connect with me. I saw how much perseverance and patience that it takes to become a teacher, and I think that I'm capable of doing that. And finally, I love planning, grading, even the parts of the job that many people find tedious. But the most important reason to become a teacher is because I want to help all students that come into my classroom, ones that many people just give up on. I want all children to know that I believe in them, and I want to help them reach their full potential. Thank you for tuning in, and I hope to see you next episode. Thank you.