Yay woohoo I get to be in "how to become a teacher" school and yes I really do love it, even when it's a pain in the butt.
I'm working on a project for my Ed Psych class - actually it's a lesson - on motivation. I chose this topic because I wanted to really get to know how to motivate students. Turns out I find myself doing a lot of thinking about my own motivation in the process.
This project is really hard because we basically get to choose whatever we want from that day's assigned readings to teach. This makes it difficult to know what exactly to go over and what we can leave for the professor. But at the same time I guess this is intentional because as a teacher you need to be able to do that on a daily basis.
After learning more about motivation I feel...hmm... I don't know, satisfied? ... to have words to put to why I left the company to become a teacher. Working at the company - I realize that I was extrinsically motivated to do it. I already realized this, but I guess I didn't realize it was a "real" psych term, and I referred to it as external reasons as opposed to internal (which is still correct; perhaps I also said intrinsic and extrinsic, I wish I knew!!). I loved the paycheck, my family was proud of me, I had the glory of the "war stories", people were impressed when I said "I work for ..." But nothing about it kept me up at night except for stress and fear. There were parts that I truly loved, and I can't emphasize enough that it was an incredibly valuable experience. But generally by 5pm I wanted to close up shop and get the hell out as quickly as possible.
Now I realize that working towards becoming a teacher is something that is completely intrinsically motivating for me. The pay is not extraordinary, my dad wanted me to stay at the company like all hell, and telling people "I'm going to be a teacher" is not very unique. But it's something I have to do. I just do. I'm interested in it, it's a job where I can help people on a daily basis, and I can seriously make a difference in the world and the field of education, a place that desperately needs change. I can envision myself working round the clock and on weekends just because it's not only a job.
I know a lot of that sounds idealistic, and may change once I really hit the real world of teaching. But I think it is important to have these feelings about my profession at all. It's something that's very internal to me, in my heart, and something I feel compelled and challenged by. I see a future for myself in doing this, and that is really important to me.
Read more...
