The Value of a Good Teacher

            When I decided to return to school and further my education I had to consider what career direction I wanted to work towards.  At first I had an interest in the study of natural resources for a career that would allow me to work independently and in the outdoors, also this career choice would fulfill one of my private joys, the ability to know and understand all of the natural resources that our right out my own backdoor.  However, as soon as I started my continued education I discovered that my growing knowledge was extremely beneficial for my own family.  I have a daughter that is in middle school and was struggling with her math skills.  She was staring down the barrel of a failing grade in math.  I started working with her to help raise her grade.  Right away I realized that without my decision to further my education I would not be up for the challenge.  After spending some time with her math teacher and experiencing this amazing impact that I had on my daughter my career choice changed to that of becoming a teacher. 

          When I decided to head my career path towards teaching I considered where my skills could be best served.  When considering a career in teaching there are multiple venues to practice your craft.  Given that I have a daughter that is still between K through 12 and after my experience with her, I decided right away to rule out upper level teaching divisions.  That left me three platforms to teach from, internet, private schools and public schools.  My immediate bias leaned towards public schools for three major reasons.  First I believed that the growing pressure on public schools was too much for the deflating public school teacher population to handle.  With classes ranging from 25 to up to 35 students and teacher salaries not keeping up with their financial investment that teachers put in their higher education, the growing demand for people to fulfill these positions, not for financial reasons but for community and service, stood out.  Second I have always realized the value of education in all of its facets.  We all learn things in a different way.  For example, for one person hands on works best, while for another repetition is the key, and some are able to pick things up almost instantaneously.  Others learn by watching someone else perform the given task and mimicking their example.  The public-school system offers all of these teaching methods for its student population, as opposed to an internet or homeschool situation that does not offer the student the same kind of interaction with other students on a up close personal way.  That leaves me to my last reason, the benefits of not only having to excel in a social situation, but the rewards that students can make by experiencing the challenges that comes from competition that can have a life lasting advantage in not only their career paths, or further educational goals, but also relationship skills.  I would appreciate other people’s feedback on where students receive the ultimate experience in their individual educational path from K through 12.