Chapter 1 - Status of the Profession

The first thing I agreed with while reading this chapter is that a lot of people who became teachers were positively influenced by a former teacher. This is exactly my scenario. My elementary school physical education teacher and my high school guidance counselor is the one person who influenced me the most. Since the day I met her, I have wanted to be a teacher. I learnt in this chapter that a big benefit to being a teacher is having the long summer vacations. One of my teachers in high school told me that those vacations are much needed because by the time the school year is over, some of those kids are to the point where it gets really hard to handle them. There are three main reasons people want to become teachers, and I think the best one to have is the desire to work with kids. I have been working with kids for a very long time. I went from babysitting, to coaching elementary basketball teams, to working at a youth drop-in center, to substitute teaching. If you don't have a desire to work with kids and want to see them accomplish things in their lives and make it to the next level, teaching would probably be a very hard thing to do. Other things I learnt while reading this chapter were the ten standards that teachers need to follow and the different types of salaries for teachers. Most teachers salaries are based on the single schedule salary, which pays the same salary for the amount of preperation and experience. Last, but not least, I learnt that the status of the teaching profession is slowly improving. This chapter was a very good introduction to the profession of teaching and I can't wait to learn more about it!!