Teachers are the best resource we have. Teachers are shaping the future. Teachers are essential workers. That's what the world thinks about teachers. They talk about how teachers are so important. After all, who would each of us be, without our favorite teachers? We certainly wouldn't be building rockets to the moon. Yet the world continues to place education on the back burner. I know that teachers are important which is why despite many teachers quitting due to lack of pay, resources and respect, I have decided to become a teacher. What other job would give me the same satisfaction at the end of the day? I plan to inspire the next generation by genuinely getting to know each of my students. I know that this sounds too hopeful. I can't possibly get to know each of my students. This is true and while I can't get to know each one of my students to the extent I want to, my secondary goal can help. My secondary goal is to truly show excitement for learning and what I am teaching. Kids aren't as stupid as adults often think. They can sense whether a teacher likes what they are teaching. If I show that I am excited about what I am teaching, they are more likely to not only learn what I am teaching but also be inspired to learn more throughout their entire lives. I can push through the lack of pay and respect because I will care for my students personally and want to inspire them to continue to learn about themselves so they can accomplish great things.

I love Cheese-Its. I'm a Christian. Both my parents are teachers. Those are just a few of the most important things about myself. I am a pro ice cream scooper/ barista at a local coffee/ice cream shop. I am seventeen years old, going into my senior year of high school. In one short year, I will be at college where I will eventually have to choose a major. Luckily I have wonderful teachers and have had wonderful teachers who have over time unconsciously convinced me to become a teacher. I want to change lives. My life has been shaped by the teachers that I have had for my short seventeen years. Our world needs good teachers to show the next generation what they can accomplish and what they can achieve. What other job can you form a short but special relationship that might change that person's life? It makes me beyond excited to one day have my own classroom and to form those relationships. The shaping of young minds is a daunting task. The brain is so complex, that we don't even know everything about it. The textbooks about the psychology of the mind are always being updated and changed. How are we supposed to teach anything right when by the next year, everything has completely changed? I am ready for that challenge because of my thirst for knowledge. I never grew out of that toddler yearning to know everything about everything. I can always ask another why to understand fully the topic so that I can be an expert on it. A teacher is like another parent. Parenting is a hard task and they cannot always be there for that child. As a teacher, I can help those children by becoming a figure that they can look up to and talk to when they need to. I can help the parents eight hours a day by teaching their children to become something better than they could be so that their child has a better life than they did. A teacher is a partner with the parent to encourage the student to always do their best. There are many noble professions that the world needs, but an overlooked and underappreciated one is teaching. As teachers, we are shaping the world through children's minds. I want to make a positive impact on the world. I want to continuously learn about the best way to teach a child. I want to be a positive role model in children's lives. I want to change a child's life for the better so they can accomplish all that they were meant to.

As a gifted child myself, I understand how it is for a gifted student to be so far from the class, school is boring and repetitive. When I was in elementary school, I cried to my mom every Sunday night because of the sheer boredom I was forced to endure during school. This experience is the opposite of what children should go through. School should be a fun, stimulating environment for children to grow. In my future career path as a teacher, I would help my gifted students to reach their full potential in my classroom. With the huge amount of students in a classroom, it can be hard to cater to every student. This is my plan: on the first day of school, I would have all my students take a simplified version of the final exam I would hand out at the end of the semester. This will allow me to see what my students already know and identify the gifted ones. I will then craft a personalized lesson plan for each student based on their needs. Not everyone is the same person, yet in school, we are all treated like we all learn the same way and all have the same needs. In my classroom, the learning will be crafted for every student so I can help those who need help and stimulate those who are gifted. Meeting the social-emotional well-being of my students would be harder since this is not something I can figure out with a simple test. Once I have singled out my gifted students, I would put them in a group together. Then my regular students won't feel stupid or dumb when being sat down next to a gifted student. It is not the gifted student's job to keep order or instill discipline in my classroom. That is my job and so that is not an excuse I will be using to mix the students. My gifted students can learn from each other at the level they are at while also fostering their social well-being. My troubles as a gifted student in the school have caused me to see that I am now fully capable to teach gifted and non-gifted students in equal but different ways to stimulate their social well-being as well as their intellectual well-being. I will give them an entrance exam that will not be graded and seat them in different groups to make their school experience better than mine.

My dream self paves the way for every student to learn the skills to be the best person they can be to change the world.