Why do I want to be a teacher?

For today--answer this question:


What are your three (3) most important reasons for wanting to be a teacher?


This is from a job application. An on-line job application. With a *character* limit of 300. What's next--Twitter job applications?

This question demonstrates my general frustration with job applications. I've been a teacher for 20+ years, but the applications assume everyone is a new/recent graduaate. The question is "why do you want to be a teacher?" but that is irrelevant to me, at the moment. A better question is "why do you *still* want to be a teacher?"

The question of why I still want to be a teacher is probably worth thinking about. Teaching is hard work with demanding people. When things go right you get little credit (societally) but when things go wrong you get heaps of blame. The salary is decent, but not spectacular and the working conditions are much less flexible than many others. (Yes, I know, you get the summers off--that doesn't help scheduling plumbers in October.) So why haven't I found something easier to do? Good question!

Back to the application: (I'm applying for jobs in both math and science so I have to cover both in the 300 characters.)

Three reasons why I want to teach:

1. Science is fascinating and I want to help students develop an apprecaition and understanding of science. (This is good--short, to the point and addresses the audience appropriately)

2. Math is extraordinarily useful but students don't always appreciate or understand the connections between math and life. I want to help students learn math in a way which makes sense to them, so they view math as a positive force in the universe and feel encouraged to pursue topics which require facility with math. (That's probably more than 300 characters right there. I'm not a mathematician so I don't really seem to appreciate math for it's own sake. That's true--at the college major level and beyond, math gets too abstract for my concrete mind, but in HS--and through the first two years of college, math focuses on developing critical problem solving skills as well as the tools needed to study science or engineering as well as math at the college level, so maybe I'm ok)

3. I enjoy working with people. (True--but not really specific enough for teaching. One must be careful with this type of statement because it can get creepy, pretty quickly. I try to use students, rather than children, for that reason. But, it really is all about the kids. Watching them develop is so satisfying, But does that seem to self-centered?

4. Students need to become self-directed learners as adults and I enjoy facilitating this process. (True, but sounds a little odd and need to somehow connect with 3, since this makes too many reasons)

OK--at least that's something. Next step, edit it down to 300 characters.