Why Teach?

Children are entertaining. They just are. They say things, do things, and even though those things occasionally mean you're cleaning up a disastrous mess or calling the doctor to schedule the removal of a foreign object from said child's ear, the entertaining or warm n' fuzzy moments pretty much make up for it.

But, mostly, it's the entertaining moments.

I might be saying this simply because I don't have kids of my own, but it's the fun moments that make it worth it for me. At least, that's what makes being around kids in a school environment worth it to me.

I was helping out at health fair this year (where they weigh you, see how tall you are, check your eyes and ears). I've helped out a number of years with the hearing part of the health fair, and it's always fun to test the really young ones who are doing it for the first or second time.

Most of them raise their hand so fast, they raise off their seats from the momentum. Others hesitantly lift their hand to touch the headphones for the first few frequencies, their hand getting higher as they go along. Each student seems to have their own unique reaction to hearing the strange warbling, alien bird sound in their ears. One kid even turned around and told me that I needed to turn it up because he couldn't hear it very well.

Well, I'll get right on that.

The point of me posting this is that I realized that I haven't really talked about the student side of teaching abroad. I've been keeping you guys posted about the application process, South Korea info and such, but I haven't told you about why I specifically decided that I wanted to work with children for a living.

This is why.

Kids are fun. Kids are great. When they get something, and they are enthusiastic about it, it's even better. I was kind of tired after a full day of health fair screenings, but I wasn't exhausted and I didn't feel like my day had been wasted. Today, I woke up at 9 since I didn't need to be up as early and felt like my day was half gone.

A while ago, I watched a video about motivation. My dad showed it to me, and now I'm going to share it with you on this blog:

The video is kind of long, so I'm just going to pin-point the one thing that is significant to me at this point in my life. I have some great jobs right now from some great companies, but it took quite a bit of work to find them among the crowd of "make $200 every day" and "Easy, Great Pay" jobs that weren't actually all that great.

There are more and more jobs out there that are asking freelance writers to write more for less. What they want is quantity over quality, and in the end you, the writer, hardly get paid and actually feel a little... icky.

Then, there are the jobs that offer decent pay, but are so monotonous that banging your head on the keyboard would be more interesting and meaningful. I had quite a few of those jobs in the past, and while people were telling me how great it must be to be able to work wherever and whenever I want, I was getting headaches.

There was no satisfaction of a job well done, no feeling like I'd made a positive impact on the world and half the time I felt like my work was being deconstructed in front of me to be worked on a hundred times more.

So, I put my foot down. I decided that I wasn't going to do those jobs anymore, even if it meant more time in between jobs. This decision has done wonders for my mental state. I feel less anxious, even though I'm making less money, and I actually look forward to the work.

Which is why I decided to finally work towards teaching ESL abroad. For me, the meaning behind the work outweighs the possible disasters. I get to spend time with students who are bound to surprise me and amuse me, and I get to learn more about a different culture. To top it all off, I get paid and I get housing.

Sounds good to me.

If you have any questions, comments (maybe you want to help me out a little...) feel free to leave 'em where I can seem 'em. I'll do my best to respond. 읽어 주셔서 감사합니다!