Podcast 2: Digital ethics, Why Teach?

The podcast discusses the reasons why teaching is a desirable profession. It emphasizes the importance of digital ethics and protecting students' privacy. Teaching allows for a meaningful impact on students' lives and offers fulfillment. The job is constantly changing, providing variety and challenges. Building connections with students and fellow teachers is also highlighted as a positive aspect of the profession. Overall, teaching is seen as a rewarding and impactful career choice. Today's topic on Colvin's Class Chronicles is, Why should you get into teaching? What makes the profession desirable and how do you know if it is good for you? Are the good and the bad things people say all true? We will explore this topic in this week's podcast, but first I want to address something else. Digital ethics and an educator's reputation in an online environment. As educators, we will use so much technology in our profession in so many ways and this makes it important to establish some guiding principles for what digital ethics means for the show. The biggest thing I can do is protect my students' privacy in every way possible. This includes changing names, leaving them out completely, making sure nothing can be traced back specifically to my students, colleagues, or my school, and making sure my identity on the show is that of trust and credibility. The only reputation I want to create is a professional, helpful one, and it's my desire to model for both my students and listeners what being a good digital citizen means. With that being said, let's get into our podcast topic, which is, Why should you get into teaching? If you are listening in, chances are you are a teacher or you want to become one. Either way, I hope it either inspires you to keep pursuing the profession or gives you the boost you need if you have been doing it for a while. The question is, why get into teaching? I hope to stray from anything that can be considered ra-ra or cheesy, but the reality is that it is truly an impactful job. If you work hard and if you are good at it, you have a classroom full of 20 plus kids that you can make a meaningful impact on every single year. Any good teacher knows you never truly have 20 kids to worry about. Over the course of a career, it is hard to overstate how many lives you can positively impact. You get to be a part of their story for a while and have the power to make an actual, tangible difference. Teaching is an incredibly important job and you will find fulfillment in meeting this profession nearly every single day. It is also a job that is constantly changing. Teachers are constantly forced to learn and grow, to change and adapt with the times. The environment of the classroom itself can be very different every single day. Every student in class can be completely different and the challenges are ever-changing, if not persistent. It is a great job for someone who gets bored or tired of the same thing day in and day out. In my five, maybe four plus years in the education field, I can tell you that no two days are exactly alike. Lastly, the people you meet can make your life better every single day. This goes for students, but also for fellow teachers. In a school with a good community and passionate teachers, the connection you make, if you lean into it, will be plentiful. You will find people who inspire you to be better every single day, who come with years or potentially decades of knowledge and wisdom, and you will belong to a community with plenty of common interests and goals. I can tell you that I have made countless number of friends, connections, and role models simply from being part of this community. I am lucky enough to have a team that stretches far beyond my grade level, a team of support and compassion and professionalism that makes going into work all that much better. I hope some of these things remind you of why you got into teaching or what makes it so great. While this is a topic I could talk about for hours, I hope I have been concise enough to convince you that this is the path for you. Thanks for tuning in and I will talk to you next time.