Choosing The Teaching Profession originally published in Volume 37, #2 (2016) of the Journal Of The Texas Association For The Education of Young Children.
Reprinted here with the author’s permission.

Recently, I followed an early childhood publisher on Facebook as they posed a question each week for their followers to comment about. They encouraged responses by offering a prize to a person whose answer was randomly selected. One of the questions asked their followers which career they might have preferred over teaching. By the end of the allotted time, there were 37 responses. Only seven of them stated that they chose to be childcare teachers. The remaining 30 included such professions as: legal aide, dentist, scientist, police officer, paleontologist, forest ranger, veterinarian, heart surgeon, ballerina, astronaut, waitress, nurse, author, architect, and a pharmacy technician.

After reading all the answers, I wondered how those teachers, who had talked about their other preferred professions, feel about teaching young children now. Do they enjoy it as their chosen path, or do they resent it? How do they feel about working in a profession that pays so poorly? And, finally, how might all these feelings affect their interactions with children and families in their care? For example, one of my colleagues once shared with me that she thought that people who work with young children have been emotionally wounded when they were children themselves, and that it was as if they had chosen the profession of early childhood education because of that (Jacobson, 2008).

I often think that for me working with young children was a way of working through what I went through as a young child. I don’t think that is why I consciously chose this profession, but I certainly recognize that through the years of working with young children, I have come to understand a lot about my own childhood.

What makes us choose to become teachers of young children? When I was a young woman, I really did not know what I wanted to do professionally. Some of my friends were making plans to study to become teachers, nurses or artists. At age 19, I immigrated to Israel from a small town in the British colony of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where I was born, and had no idea what I wanted to do. At the time, I chose to become an occupational therapist, because it had seemed like it did not require the rigor of an academic university, for in those days I did not have confidence in my intellectual abilities. The college where I studied was in an ancient Middle Eastern setting on Mount Scopus overlooking the old city of Jerusalem.

For six months or so I struggled, eventually discovering that the anatomy classes were very difficult for me, especially since they were instructed in Hebrew, while my mother tongue was British colonial English. Learning about the human anatomy was a requirement for becoming a proficient occupational therapist, and all the parts of the body, including each little bone, have Latin names, which we had to memorize. Between Hebrew and Latin, I soon found myself overwhelmed, and incapable of passing the courses needed for that profession.

And so, demoralized and convinced that my failure was proof of my incompetence as a student, I left Jerusalem where I was studying, and went further north to a kibbutz, which was an agricultural community settlement in the lower Galilee. As I was considering becoming a member of the kibbutz, I was given a number of different work assignments, including picking fruit in the orchards, various tasks in the laundry, serving in the dining hall, washing dishes in the kitchen, and cleaning toilets in the communal restrooms.

Finally, I was assigned to one of the children’s houses to work with the lead caregiver of a small group of young toddlers. I had much to learn, for, at age 21, I had never taken care of young children before. There were many tasks to perform, including folding laundry, washing floors, diapering, preparing food, as well has playing with and educating the six children in our care. At the beginning I was quite anxious, because I really did not know how to interact with young children, but as the days and weeks went on I began to fall in love with each and every child in the group. I loved watching them discover new skills, learn to walk and talk, and I especially loved it when they cuddled in my lap to listen to a story, or feel comforted by me when they were sad or hurting.

In addition, I enjoyed interacting with their parents when they dropped off their child in the morning, visited them during the day, or at pick-up time in the early evening. Indeed, I felt as if a whole new world had opened up to me, one where I was worthwhile, and valued for the contribution I made in my work. A year later, I left the kibbutz and decided to study to become a preschool-kindergarten teacher with the Israeli Ministry of Education, and I enrolled in a two-year teaching seminary in Jerusalem to acquire an equivalent of an Associates degree.

Now that I am a professor of early childhood education, and an educator of future teachers of young children, I am impressed at how so many of our students seem to know exactly what they want to do when they graduate. Many report that they have wanted to be teachers since they were young children. I wonder how, at such a young age, they know what they want to become, when for me it seemed so difficult to find my professional path. Nowadays, as I look back, I think I might have been more suited to becoming a psychoanalyst, or family therapist. However, I have adapted my teacher educator position according to my interests and expertise, and at times feel as if I have adjusted my work or expertise for teachers as a counselor supervisor as well as their instructor, working to help them reflect on their earliest childhood years as they make connections with their biases, or emotions related to interacting with young children (Jacobson, 2003; Jacobson, 2008).

As you read about how other teachers chose to join our noble profession, and now you have read mine, take a moment to reflect on how and why you chose to become a teacher of young children. After all, this is an important life choice in a profession that will affect and influence many young children’s emotional and academic future lives as well as your own. Is it love of children? And, if so, what does that mean for you? Love is a complex emotion. We learn it not only through words and declarations, but also by behaviors and interactions from significant adults in our own lives. Do we love all children equally? What about those with challenging behaviors, special needs, or those we are unable to connect with? Do we love them as well? Did we choose to work in childcare centers because we did not believe we were capable of doing anything else, or did we relish the idea of spending hours caring for and educating the very young? Did our families or societies socialize us to believe we were born to care for children because we are women? Or did we decide that caring for and educating young children is an important and rewarding profession in and of itself?

For me, education is about expanding the mind enabling us to consider different options, new and critical ways of thinking, and offers us the skills to make autonomous choices; and one of the most important aspects of teaching is the quality of adult relationships with very young children, as these have important affects and influences on young children’s brain development, and their relationships in the future.

References

Fox-Barnett, M., & Meyer, T. (1992). The teacher’s playing at my house this week! Young Children, 47(5) 45-50.
Jacobson, T. (2003). Confronting Our Discomfort: Clearing the Way for Anti-Bias in Early Childhood. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann
Jacobson, T. (2008). Don’t Get So Upset! Help Young Children Manage Their Feelings by Understanding Your Own. Saint Paul, MN: Redleaf Press.

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