Should You Be a Teacher? | Teacher Vlog

I just want to say this is the level the level of professionalism real rapid the rounds rolls with these are all my notes for this video they're on this light up board it's how we roll pouring rain out here in New Jersey this morning but I still wanted to bring this to you because I really like this question that I got the other day I've gotten this question a lot from viewers through comments through emails and the question is should I become a teacher so I received an email the other day and in that email there were a list of pros and cons right like these are reasons why I think I should I would be a really good teacher these are reasons I don't think I'd be a really good teacher maybe on your pro side you're really good with kids you really love your content area you're really organized you're really passionate about children you want to give back you feel led to do this and so that is making you want to become a teacher there's all these great reasons and I think you should go with all of them the funny thing your pro list is probably much longer than you even think that it is if you asked other people they would probably say oh yeah and you're good at this and you're good at this and you're good at so what I'd like to really talk about is your con list because people send me con lists and and that's just really a list of all your limitations your things that you think are holding you back from becoming a good teacher and those might look like you struggle with anxiety and depression you are socially awkward maybe you don't feel like you're assertive enough and like your classroom management this is gonna be your shy and you're not really sure how you're gonna connect with the students I think all of these are valid I'm not here to tell you whether they are right or whether they're wrong and really in short should you be a teacher I can't say for sure because I don't know you but right now I want to talk a little bit more about about why you're pro and con list shouldn't define whether or not you become a teacher I think it's not your limitations but what you do with those limitations that's going to help you to become a better teacher let me break this down limitations are kind of one of those tricky things because we let them tell us what we're going to do in life and what we're not going to do in life I think that with a little bit of perspective change what you can do is learn how to embrace your limitations to love your limitations and to let them work for you and as a teacher when it's only all about the students anyway you can learn how to make your limitations work for your students so let me give you a few examples just so that I'm clear and this isn't just all like theoretical if you're introverted maybe you become the teacher that all the introverted kids gravitate towards that they need I would invite all of the introverted kids all of the quiet kids the shy kids the ones that choose to just read a book alone while they're at lunch or to just play a game on their phone and they don't really interact with the rest of the students why not give them a quiet invitation come and sit into your room during lunch time or in the beginning of the day or if or after school create a space that's just quiet that they don't have to talk to one another but they can come in they can do what they want to do and they can feel safe in that place and what that does is it makes you the person who created this space that kids can feel at peace and they can feel calm and they can feel safe while they're in school without having to be a part of like the craziness that can sometimes happen in the lunchroom you even being an introvert and being nervous that you could have make connections with kids just became the person that did that another limitation that I see on people's con list is that they're not assertive enough they think that classroom management is gonna be a struggle that the kids are gonna walk right over that if you struggle with classroom management then find the person in the school who's the best at classroom management and ask them to sit in on your class ask them to give you notes or pointers on the things that you're doing because sometimes we're too close to our problems to know what to do about them let me say that again sometimes we're too close to our problems to know what to do about them and sometimes it takes outside eyes looking in to let us know how maybe we can change to be better at what we're doing and you can also flip that script and go into somebody else's classroom and watch them like watch find out who the best teachers are who the kids behave for the best and then sit in on their classes and learn how they're doing things and just take their ideas in the end you really have to remember that teaching is a craft it takes time to develop a craft teachers will beat themselves up because the first day the first week the first month the first year didn't go right but the first time you ever maybe play baseball or the first time you ever tried to sew or the first time you ever tried to play drums if those didn't go well you don't just like throw your sticks down and give up you have to realize that teaching is a craft and it's gonna take years to develop your craft I thought by 10 years in I would have this one block nobody would give me any problems anymore I have to be like wool in the school I've gotten better and I feel far more confident type of teacher that I am in far enough that I started YouTube channel but I'm not nearly the teacher that I want to be yet I have this in mind of who I think I want to be and who I think I can't grow to be but I'm not there yet so it just takes the time to develop that that crap so once you do become a teacher you'll hear teachers and schools talking a lot about professional development we spend tons of hours talking about professional development but very rarely do we talk about personal development to make that clear we talk a lot about how you can tighten up your lesson plans what your classroom management can look like to be better how you can make better powerpoints how you can teach vocabulary better but personal development like the things that limit us as individuals which are most of the things that are on people's Khan lists are not ever talked about so I'm going to be real transparent with you for a minute because I think that's gonna bring you the most value in this topic when I started teaching my Khan list look something like I have really bad organizational skills I am really quick to anger when I was younger I was very very quick to anger something would happen and I would go from bliss to pissed in like two seconds my wife will tell you I very bad time management skills I think I have more time that I actually do most of the time and then I run out of time and I just all go south from there I would really really hold on to grudges so if someone pissed me off I'd hold on to that for a long time whether it was another teacher whether it was a parent whether it was a student and I would hold on to that and have a hard time like letting go so that I could move on from it I no sense of or ability to be vulnerable being able to share like my thoughts and feelings on stuff unless it was in like an angry way right rook anger was completely reasonable emotion for men to feel but molnár ability was not a reasonable emotion for men to feel and I also went into teaching with like this inflated sense of self and went in feeling far more confident than I ever should have and what that did was that really ended up limiting me I held so firmly onto my beliefs because I was so confident and I didn't want to hear anything that anyone else had to say or what the kids had to say or what a parent had to say because I thought that I knew everything already so I had to figure out for myself how to grow from these limitations and to become a better a human and a better teacher despite all these limitations that were holding me back and so that's gonna look different for every single person maybe for you it's meditation or therapy or spiritual direction or Bible study or exercise or just spending Wyatt time maybe it's a weekly dinner with friends where you reflect on your week and talk about how things went for me it was a combination of things it was a embracing the communities that I was a part of and letting people actually speak into my life and learning how to listen to them it was learning to be more vulnerable bites just telling my story and be really honest with people about how I thought and what I felt and I went the spiritual direction I've been in spiritual direction for the last six years and what that kind of looks like as I go and talk to a counselor about where I am mentally and where I am spiritually and that outsider helps me look inward in the end that's what we're really trying to do to grow personally it's about looking inward and not just outward at your life and then learning how to grow from there for me the surprising sort of extra effect of doing all that personal inward work was how much it benefited my students that I was able to see students that were having the same sorts of issues and reach out or just let them know that like I've been there I've dealt with something like that having students just know that someone else has gone through something just like they did really helps them see that they can succeed also whether you're introverted or you're angry or you're depressed or you're anxious reach out to the kids that you find that are like you and let them know that you were just like that also and you're working on it as well or you already worked on it and remind them of what they can become in the end you're always going to have a list of the things that would make you good at something and the things that would hold you back from being good at something but if you think you should be a teacher if something inside you is telling you that you should be a teacher that this should be your life's work then I say go for it and just remember to be with yourself and patient with yourself and to take time because teaching is a craft and it takes time to develop any craft if you have any questions about this please leave it in the comments section below I'd love to further this conversation with you I will 100% get back to you you can email me if you want to send something more private or DM or message or you could send a carrier pigeon I've never got one of those I just they go be awesome to have a carrier pigeon come to my house if you know any new teachers please let them know about this community of teachers that are on YouTube they can hit me up and I'd love to get back to them and talk to them about this and we hit that little fellow thing down there don't notify you every single time that I put up a video and then you won't be like Reynolds doesn't put out video in a while but I did you think it's a new species you shouldn't touch the Bell it's like being Saved by the Bell Oh dad jokes all right guys thanks for watching I appreciate it so much peace [Music]

Channel: Real Rap With Reynolds

Views: 52,513

Rating: 4.9797606 out of 5

Keywords: real rap with the reynolds, real rap with reynolds, saved by the bell, teacher vlog, teacher vlogger, philly teacher, philadelphia teacher, urban educator, inner city high school teacher, day in the life of a teacher, hip hop teacher, hip hop educator, should you be a teacher, should I be a teacher, on the fence about teaching, spiritual direction, embracing limitations, should I teach, teacher life

Id: soUojLihIq8

Length: 9min 41sec (581 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 06 2017