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Gabriela Vasquez

Teressa Jackson

22975

8/22/23

Why I Want to Be a teacher

All my life, I have been asked, “What do you want to do after you graduate high school?”

To be honest I had many different ideas before wanting to be a teacher. For example, for the

longest time I wanted to be a farmer. After that, I wanted to be a zoologist. I was determined to

be a zoologist. I had many dreams of becoming someone who had meaning in their life.

I then had a class called TAP, Teaching as a Profession. The class is where you go to the

younger schools to help teachers. There are 3 different classes TAP 1, TAP 2, and TAP 3. The

first class, you only see your mentor teacher 2 times a week. The second class, you go 3 times a

week. The third class, you go every day. I have already taken TAP 1 and 2. I am waiting to take

TAP 3. I first joined the class just so it would look good whenever I went to college. But out of

nowhere, I began to connect with the students in the classes I helped with. There would be times

where the students would not listen, and I had to get them in trouble, but they always understood

that what they did was wrong. When I took the first TAP class, I realized I wanted to be a

teacher, but the second TAP class, I realized that I was in love with teaching. I understood that

showing students new things makes them happy, especially whenever they learn something new

on the first try.

At that point I knew I wanted to be a teacher; I just did not know what I wanted to teach.

I had an art class that I helped in, and I loved the students in that class as well, but I knew it was

not for me. After that, I had a 6th grade ELA class, and that sure was not for me! I did not connect
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with the students in that class like I did with the students in the other class. So, I knew I was not

going to teach ELA. During that time, I had one of the best teachers I could ever ask for. She was

my geometry teacher. Her name was Mrs. Carelock. Mrs. Carelock and I really connected while

she was my teacher, and she helped me learn how much I loved geometry. So, at that point, I

wanted to teach geometry. Then, when I helped in an ESL class, I connected with the students. I

really understood what it was like to be in an ESL class, from experience. As a young child I

always had to have an ESL class because of my Latino parent. I spoke perfect English and

perfect Spanish, but I was always put in that class. The kids that I taught, all of them knew

perfect English but they just never passed the exam at the end of the year.

As I continued exploring what I wanted to teach, I was also taking a foreign language

class, and that was French. I did not hate learning the language. The thing I hated was the

teacher. The way she ran the class was an absolute disaster. I mean I understand that we must

learn all the criteria to pass the class, but some of the things she made us do were unnecessary.

The second we walked into class, we had to take notes, we would take notes the whole class. The

class takes 90 minutes (about 1 and a half hours). So, we would work from the time the bell rang

at the beginning of class, to the time the bell would ring to leave class. If we would try and pack

up even a minute before the bell rang, she would get mad and make us unpack our bag and take

notes again. That is when I decided I was going to teach Spanish in High School. I know Spanish

so why not? I want kids to have fun while learning a foreign language and to have fun doing it. I

want them to have a better experience than I did. I want them to continue to learn the language

and to want to learn more and not dread going to class.

I want all students to have a better experience than I did in High School. All my life

adults always told me, “These are the best years of your life, don’t be upset about going to school
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every day.” We all know from experience that it is not the best. But as a student in High School,

I want to change that. I want to change the ways of teaching. I want to make it more fun. I want

students to enjoy coming to my class on Monday mornings. I always see signs in teacher's

classrooms that say,” Teachers change the world,” and I want to make it happen.