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Teaching Profession Opinion

Your High and Noble Calling

By AAEE — July 28, 2015 1 min read
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Messages to the weary:

The job hunt can be tiresome. Throughout July this blog will be speaking to those who are weary from the search. The intent is to join you in the struggle and to encourage you along the way. If you are not the one searching, perhaps you can use these words to encourage others.

Hello Again Pre-Employed Educator,

Thank you for accepting the high calling of becoming an educator. Our world needs qualified people to prepare our children for their future and ours.

Becoming a teacher is a high calling. It is not about high pay. It is not about fame. It is not about short work days. It IS about loving and educating children. It IS about sacrifice. It IS about changing the future by investing in one life at a time.

I have kids. I entrust them, in part, to their teachers to partner with my wife and me to equip them for a full and meaningful life. The teachers at my kids’ school don’t receive enough pay or credit for what they do each day. Yet they are some of the unspoken heroes in our community and in our world.

You have answered the call to be counted among them. The job search is hard but you can persevere because you know that you can make a difference in a child’s life and that child can make a difference in the world.

Can you visualize what your classroom will one day look like? Can you imagine bulletin boards and charts? Can you feel a sense of anticipation when you think of meeting parents? How about the satisfaction that will come when you introduce a child to a new concept and thereby open them up to a new world?

One of my children has had her life blossom after a teacher introduced her to Shakespeare. One of my children has discovered an interest in the world of engineering through a Lego club. I personally remember having my life greatly impacted by reading a few simple words on the top of an assignment that was returned to me: “Jeff, you are a diamond in the rough.” Educators are life changers. It is simply what they do.

Thank you for answering the call.

Thank you for persevering in the job search. And you can persevere. Because you know that one day, when you receive keys to your classroom, you will begin a career and your career will make a difference in the world.

Finish strong! You are almost there!

Jeff Eads, Assistant Director

Career Center

Ball State University

Muncie, IN

The opinions expressed in Career Corner are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.