Teaching

The Best Job in the World

This past year has been unlike any other. Some teachers will have braved the storm, some will have changed careers and many new teachers will have joined the profession. We all have one thing in common and that’s our passion for education.

A career in teaching is unbelievably varied and unbelievably rewarding. Many teachers will tell you that despite the difficult day they’ve just had, they completely adore their job. Some will put it down to their amazing colleagues and many will tell you they have the best learners. Every teacher will have their own tales to tell. Remember the time your learner did something unexpected? Remember the day that your class’s Numeracy and Mathematics learning FINALLY clicked into place? Having these small successes and stories keeps us going when it’s harder to love our jobs. After all, we all have tough days, weeks or sometimes even months.

This World Teacher’s Day, the Twinkl Scotland team wanted to share with you our own personal reasons for choosing teaching. Some of us are still fairly new to the profession and others have been teaching their whole lives, but we all live richer lives thanks to this incredible vocation.

Why We Became Teachers

When I asked our amazing team of dedicated teachers why they chose the profession, there were a wealth of reasons.

Personally, I joined teaching because I genuinely love learning. I was the child sitting at the front of the class hanging on every word my teacher said and, much to my parent’s surprise, I was the child that asked for extra Maths homework. The love of learning is not unique to me and when I consider the wide range of talents we have on the team, it’s clear that all of us share this passion.

Some of my colleagues became teachers because of how rewarding the role is. There’s nothing more exciting than working with learners and seeing all the pieces begin to fall into place. We sometimes describe it as ‘the lightbulb moment’ and if we’re lucky we get to see that moment quite frequently.

Others have been inspired by their own teachers when they were growing up. As teachers we often underestimate the impact that our own enthusiasm for learning can have on the children we work with. Considering some of my colleagues still citing their teachers as an inspiration after 25 years in the profession, it’s clear that a good teacher sticks with you for life. Some of us were even inspired to ‘join the family business’ by following the footsteps of dads, mums, aunties and a range of other teaching relations. One of my colleagues described her family as ‘Gaelic activists’ and became a teacher so they could contribute to the education of future Gaelic speakers.

Some colleagues love to see others succeed. Whether this was seeing a loved one struggle with learning and dedicating time as a child to support them or enabling adults with complex needs to find independence, the rush of pride you feel for someone who overcomes challenges is immense. One colleague shared how at age six they would help a family member with a learning disability, setting up whole schemes of work based on their favourite books.

Of course, undoubtedly one of the most important reasons we became teachers is that we love working with children. One of my colleagues wrote that ‘kids bring them joy’ and I couldn’t agree more. They say that in showbiz you should never work with children or animals, most likely due to their unpredictable nature. For me, it’s exactly this unpredictability that makes the role so dynamic and enjoyable. I loved when my learners would surprise me with different questions and ideas during class time. Sometimes, of course, those surprises were tricky, but we always found a way to not only work through them but learn from them too.

The ‘Worth It’ Moments

The feeling you get when you see a learner succeed where they felt they couldn’t or where they let down their defenses is like no other. Anyone who has children of their own or that works with children will know it well. It’s a feeling of overwhelming pride and joy for the child. I profess that I’m not a person that cries much, but some of my fondest memories of teaching often bring me to tears. These are the moments that make being a teacher worth it. Here are some of the moments that made my colleagues burst with pride:

These are just a number of stories among countless others that remind teachers why they chose their career. They make the years of study to become qualified worth it. They make every single classroom observation worth it. They make the staff meetings and professional development learning sessions worth it. They make the early mornings planning and late nights marking worth it. They make the hard days easier and the good days incredible.

They make teaching the best job in the whole world.