Teacher, Teacher!

Every kid has a dream. As a Kindergartner, mine was to be an elementary school teacher. I liked to play school with my stuffed animals, who would dutifully listen as I expounded the complexities of counting to 100. I dreamed of the projects I would have my students do, and I started a mental list of things I would do when I was a teacher
I may not be a Kindergartner anymore, but I still want to be an elementary school teacher. There's many reasons why, but the main reason is that I love little kids! There's something captivating about their innocence, their purity, their energy, their simplicity. I can relate, as I'm definitely a kid at heart. I can think of no better way to spend the rest of my life than by working with kids, and getting paid to do so.
I also love teaching! I've had the opportunity to teach in church, in school, and through tutoring programs, and I've loved every minute of each opportunity. I like to watch the light of understanding that illuminates kids' eyes when they understand a topic. I also love the creativity, the fun, and the intimacy that teaching allows. I cannot wait to become a teacher!
That being said, I cannot understand why so many people give me flack when I tell them my career goals for the future. I've been told, "You're smarter than that job" and "you can do better." I've been accused of wanting to take an easy route through college and have been told to pick a different career. I have heard it all.
...and it infuriates me! There's nothing easy about being a teacher. The job takes a special skill, patience, and tolerance that not everyone has, and it requires expertise in multiple areas and professions. Teachers are janitors, cleaning up after the snotty nosed dirty kids who traipse through their classrooms. They are surrogate mothers, caring for their students' mental, intellectual, and emotional needs. They are counselors, handing out free advice to anyone willing to listen. They are innovators, finding brilliant new ways to teach children of different capacities and backgrounds. They are scientists and readers and writers and mathematicians. They mentor, they discipline, they grade, they organize, they clean, they sacrifice, they LOVE! And not everyone can do all that.
Sure, the aerospace engineers and the neurosurgeons of the world may claim that teachers have it easy: they get summers off, have relatively short working days, and their job doesn't require much complex technical knowledge. But those scientists are so wrong. I'd honestly like to send them to teach first grade and see if they survive the ordeal. Maybe afterwards they will realize that teachers matter. Lawyers and doctors may be the people that make headlines, but teachers are the ones that save lives and change the world, one kid at a time.
I wish people would congratulate me when I tell them my dreams. I wish I could proudly say "I want to be a teacher!" instead of feeling embarrassed or ashamed of my "low goals". I wish there was no stigma attached to teaching. Adults tell kids from the cradle upward that they can be whatever they want to be; it's about time that they start practicing what they preach. Next time someone tells you they want to be an elementary school teacher, tell them to go for it. Tell them there are few jobs as noble and as important as that of a teacher. And believe it when you say it.