Why Do I Want To Be A Teacher? By Kaylee Coley

Kali Foley shares her passion for becoming a teacher, highlighting how she wants to make a positive impact on the next generation. She emphasizes the importance of teachers being a supportive figure for students and shares advice given to her by former teachers. Kali also discusses her desire to help students who may be struggling with basic needs like food. She explains her decision to pursue a career in elementary education and the inspiration she gained from observing passionate teachers. Kali plans to minor in Education Studies and Family Human Development to better understand and support her future students. She emphasizes the need for collaboration between administrators and teachers in improving the education system. Kali hopes her podcast episode sheds light on the challenges and realities of the education field. Hi everyone, my name is Kali Foley, and today in this episode, we'll be talking why do I want to be a teacher. Ever since I was in college, I always wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to be someone who could help change the next generation in the education. I wanted to be someone who the students could come talk to when they need a place to talk. Teaching has been one of my biggest dreams in my life, so I tend to follow my dreams. I have always loved working with children, so I think teaching will be a good field for me to work in with children. My former teachers have always encouraged me to follow my dreams when I told them I wanted to be a teacher. They gave me tips and advice about how hard the education field is to work for, but they never told me not to follow my dreams. The advice they gave me was to have a strong backbone and learn how to control your emotions. They have offered me their materials in the past. For example, I had two major high school teachers who helped me succeed in life. I remember my dance coach always telling us to never give up on our dreams and do not say you cannot do something around her. She always encouraged the phrases, you can do it, and never give up on your dreams. Her favorite phrase at practice was let go of this dance routine one more time, but it always be 30 more times before we are finished. Another teacher who encouraged me to follow my dreams was my junior year of high school homework teacher. I remember a ton of things in her class. For example, she encouraged us and gave us tips about our future lives, which include marriage and kids. She taught me how to multitask in the kitchen while helping my children with their homework, cooking, or cleaning the dishes. Each one of those teachers never told me how much every teacher made at all in this field. They did not want to discourage me from working in the education field. Money is not going to be my priority for my teaching job. I would rather have money to help my students make sure they are eating and paying my bills than anything else. I remember seeing my former classmates not having food at all. I have done my research that children are more likely to perform and study more with a full stomach. As a teacher, I want my students to be able to function throughout the day. Before I started my major, I was clueless about what grade I wanted to teach until I came to the University of Arkansas. I knew I wanted to be an elementary education major, but I couldn't decide on first through third grade. I have loved a classroom over the years. It helped me decide to choose third grade because I saw how much passion each teacher had for teaching. They showed many professional skills and how to manage a classroom. The observation made me realize how much I wanted to teach even more. I am ready to start creating lesson plans, creating activities, and decorating my classroom. I am ready to start seeing the education field through my eyes as a professional. I want to help administrators change the education field. Teachers need all the encouragement and help they deserve in the future. So starting soon, I will be minoring in Education Studies and Family Human Development. I think the education field minor will help me as a professional teacher encourage kids to open up as an individual. Kids are so closed and not willing to talk these days to anyone. So I think as a future teacher, it might help us to be open and willing to help the students. Yes, I know teachers are supposed to make sure the kids are behaving, but it should not always be on the teachers to make kids behave. Every discipline action should be started at home, whether at school. Teachers need more encouragement from the administration on this part. So as an individual listening to my podcast and especially this episode, I hope it helped you open up your eyes to help the future teachers teach the next generation. Every education field needs help from the administrators as much as possible than making them follow the rules. I have seen in the past how the administrators will tease the parents over the teacher's comments because the parents are always right no matter what the kids do. This episode was important and close to talk to everyone about because everybody needs to know what is going on in the education field behind the closed doors. Thank you for all the listeners who made time out of their day to listen to this episode, Why Do I Want to Be a Teacher? For more episodes, go to my channel on this and you will get part two. Thank you and have a wonderful day.