The Dreams of a Future Middle School English Teacher

I have always wanted to be a teacher. Once I started school it became my dream job. After school when I was younger I would come home and "teach" my "students." Now as a high school student have settled on a becoming a middle school English teacher. I have told many people about this goal. I had one specific teacher say to me "bless your heart wanting to teach middle school. I taught middle school and I couldn't stand it." I'm sure some the people who read this will say the same exact thing. Well, to clear up why I would ever want to be a middle school English teacher I have a very good explanation.

Grades four through six were extremely hard years for me. I was verbally bullied every day. I was not exactly an odd kid. I was a good kid, I did was I was told, I had great grades, I was a great student. I guess I was just too good for the people who bullied me. I lost a lot of self-confidence. I wasn't taught how to properly communicate with others, I wasn't taught how to properly communicate with myself. Eventually the bullying stopped. I don't really know why and I couldn't pin point the moment for you when it stopped. My eighth grade year severely impacted me. Now I must say that there were many teachers along the way who aided in this progress that I made in the eighth grade year. My eighth grade English teacher taught me so very much. She gave us this project near the beginning of the year. It was an essay that challenged us to find something that we believed in and have us write about a moment in which we began to believe that. My essay centered around my belief that God gave us mothers to teach us and help us in life. Two other students in my class wrote about God. One student wrote about how she thought that God wasn't real and that because she was taught that as a child she considered her childhood a lie. The due date of a major project we have a "celebration day." We push back all of the tables and take all of the chairs and make a large circle in the center of the room. We all sit down and share bits and pieces of our essays or stories. As you can imagine I was extremely nervous to share that day. After I shared what believed no one laughed, no one picked on me. It was a comforting place in that room in which everyone was entitled to their opinion. I was no longer afraid of who I was. My teacher taught me that about who I was through books and writing. She taught me that I wasn't alone at all.

When I become a teacher I want to be a lot like her. I want my students to learn to communicate with others. I want my students to learn to communicate with themselves. I want them to have a safe place to share and express their feelings and thoughts. That's the kind of teacher I want to be. I want to teach middle school because after lots of thought I realized that middle school has the biggest impact on a child. Many don't realize that. Many may not have had the right teachers in middle school. I want to be the right teacher for even one student and I will be able to say that as a teacher I did my job even if it was for only one student.

Introduction to My Blog

So, now that I've written my first post I should probably introduce my blog. I named it "The Random Voices" simply because the blog really has no main theme. It's just going to be a mix of a lot of different things from some of the photos that I may have taken on a recent trip to a really good quote or joke that I found or something that I have been thinking about a lot lately.

After Bible Camp

 You know when you just come back after bible camp and you're wearing one of your t-shirts, proudly displaying a bible verse like it's just another day for you because for you it truly is. You may go out in public and are walking around when someone gives you a look like "what the heck are you wearing?" and then it hits you. This "Odd for God" thing that we talk about all the time- it's real. Maybe that person that saw you quickly read that verse and that was then thought upon and a seed that was later to be nurtured was planted. Or perhaps another Christian was uplifted by your public display.  You are a true oddity in this world. Don't be afraid of this fact, do not run away instead embrace it God will you because of it.