When you're a teacher...

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a peacekeeper teaching a large group of kids who could be strangers to each other how to get along on a daily basis for 10 months.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a counselor learning why your student may suddenly be upset when they are usually upbeat.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a parent loving and caring and providing for a child who may be completely neglected at home...assuming they live with their parents.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a multitasker who can and must teach the exact same thing many different ways depending on each child's unique needs.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a time manager making copies, making phone calls, meeting parents, preparing lessons, attending required professional development sessions...sometimes all in an hour if you're lucky enough to get an hour.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a small business owner fundraising to take a group of kids on a trip somewhere to enhance their learning.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a student attending all kinds of trainings in an effort to give your students the best educational experience possible.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also your own financial adviser looking for the best, most practical and most economic ways to spend whatever budget you have on materials needed to teach what you're expected to teach (if you even get a budget).

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a social worker advocating for a student's success, especially when they have apathetic parents.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a confidante to kids who can't tell their parents something out of fear of what they might do.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a motivational speaker giving kids a reason to not give up and believe in themselves, especially when their own parents have little or no belief in their ability.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a presenter ready to show new minds why any new topic is the most fascinating thing they'll ever learn about.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a computer genius using all forms of state-of-the-art technology to enhance a lesson's effectiveness.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a lobbyist proving why your position shouldn't be eliminated due to budget cuts.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a team builder teaching different kids how their individual strengths can be used for a common good.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a moderator possibly hearing 1 story told 6 different ways, and each way insisting to be the truth when kids struggle with interpersonal conflict resolution.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a lifeguard creating, fostering, and maintaining an environment where kids feel safe, enabling them to learn.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also an editor looking at a student's best work and show them how to make it even better.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a skilled negotiator getting non-compliant or defiant students to do what you need them to do, especially when their own parents struggle with them.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also an innovator doing the best work you can using whatever resources you have available to you.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a mentor role modeling for kids how to make good decisions and follow through with them.

When you're a teacher...
...you're also a psychoanalyst learning what you need to do and how to do it in order to reach a student and pull out their greatest potential.

Because, when you're a teacher...
...you're also a trained professional who gets paid to work with other adults' kids, people coming from an extreme diversity of backgrounds, and get them all to accomplish many goal in their own unique way on a daily basis for the better part of a year.

"Teaching is the essential profession, that which makes all other professions possible." -David Haselkorn

I didn't get this from anywhere. These are my thoughts based on my experiences after just 4 years of teaching elementary music to kids in Pre-K to 5th grade.