What is YOUR Reason for Teaching?

One of the graphs that caught my attention in Chapter 1 was Figure 1.1 on page 4. For some reason I thought that the highest reason for teaching would be the salary for teaching or the long summer vacation. Those are probably misconceptions that I thought about being around teachers for such a long time. I thought what motivated them most was their time off for holidays and that they would be getting paid more teaching than they would at any other job. After looking at this graph it makes the most sense now that 70% of teachers have a desire to work with young people and that is why they enjoy their profession so much. It is satisfying for a teacher to teach young people a subject that they do not know much about, or a subject that they enjoy. I know that I remember a few of my teachers from high school because they made such a big impact on my life. That is the kind of teacher I want to be for my students, and my driving force for becoming a teacher is to create bonds with my students that will last forever. I want them to walk out of my classroom learning at least one thing during the year. If they remember one thing from that year then I will feel accomplished that I did my job. I feel as though some teachers are in certain professions for the wrong reasons. Many individuals that I talk to think that physical education is an easy major because we play games all day. Some teachers may be in the physical education field because they may not do much in their schools. It is more than just rolling the ball out to the students and having them play games on their own. I believe that it is about making an impact on your students and incorporating all 3 domains into learning. One of my reasons for teaching is also because I am extremely interested in physical education because it has been a huge impact in my life. I have always participated in sports for as long as I can remember and always looked forward to physical education class no matter what grade I was in. Most of my middle and high school memories were made in physical education, and this was where I enjoyed myself the most and where I was able to succeed. I wanted to major in something that I had an interest in, not something that I was doing just because I had to decide what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. This is something that I know I'll be excited to go into work every day and learn new things from my students and create life-long bonds with them.