The first time I realised I wanted to be a teacher was when I had finished primary school and started helping at the local brownie group. I realised that I enjoyed seeing the girls develop into more confident individuals and because of the positive and enthusiastic teaching the girls received from this you saw them become their own character and seemed to develop. Being a Brownie myself meant that I could see how I developed because of what I learnt at Brownies and became more confident in my life. When I was helping at Brownies I would help with small group tasks and also playing games with the whole group. I also realised that I wanted to be a teacher when I was helping out at my local church group every month and because of the gap in time you saw the children become more independent quite quickly. The older children used to take in turns reading the story and I would see them become better and need less prompting for it. When I had taught something at the Brownie group or at the church group and you saw the children processing it and understanding it, it made you feel like you had done something positive to someone else’s life and therefore they may go help others in some way to do the same thing and the community may benefit from this.
The kind of teacher I would like to become is an enthusiastic one so that children are more engaged with the lessons that are being taught. I would like to be an easy to come to teacher so if they had any problems they could come to me to talk about them. I also think I would like to be able to teach the lessons in a fun way so that even if the subject may not be seen as interesting to them they find it interesting in the way that its taught for example playing a game instead of just listening to a teacher about it.
Like in the story Matilda by Roald Dahl I would rather be like Miss Honey than Miss Trunchbull. This is because I wouldn’t want the children to be scared to come ask me any questions or express their own opinions. I also think that they should feel safe when at school regardless of what is happening at home, school should be a safe haven for them. I also think that students should be encouraged in any way they can be as this way they can grow into their own characters rather than exact copies of each other.
I think it is very important to acknowledge that teaching doesn’t just take place in the classroom and extra curricular activities play a huge role in a child’s life concerning social skills and more. You have conveyed this by your experience through Brownies and i think this is great to see how this has impacted on you wanting to become a teacher as you will be aware of this importance.
I like how you have linked the story of ‘Matilda’ into your post to make it an accessible idea for everyone.