The Teacher I Almost Was—And The One I’ve Now Become

When I was a kid, I used to want to be a teacher. I even dreamed of having my own school and classes at one point, thinking teaching was my ultimate calling in life.

In high school, however, I got hit by reality. I taught a private piano class for some kids—and man, half an hour had never felt so long! I mean, I was grateful that I could secure a cool part-time job at such a young age, but dealing with my students’ tantrums drained me more than I anticipated. Imagine a teenager pounding the piano keys like she was squeezing an orange—all because I asked her to play the piece one more time. Friday evenings quickly became something I dreaded.

Well, my dream of becoming a teacher just vanished into thin air after that. I also stopped envisioning my future school just a few blocks from my home. (Suddenly, running a boarding house seemed more interesting—aside from the fact that I didn’t have the capital for it.)

But I suppose you can never fully take the dream out of a kid.

Now that I’m approaching thirty, I don’t really think about my silly childhood dream of becoming a teacher and building a school anymore. It was just a phase—every kid has one. But still, there's magic in dreaming. I may not have chosen the teacher route as my ultimate career, but somehow, I ended up becoming a Sunday school volunteer at church.

I’m only called a teacher on Sundays, but the fulfillment I feel is exactly what I envisioned back then.

It’s been about eight months of spending nearly every Sunday with two-to four-year-olds. Next week, some of them will move up to a new class. And most of them will forget me—a once-a-week, one-hour teacher.

Seeing them in the small hall between classes will surely feel bittersweet. But even if our paths cross only for a moment, one thing I’ll always hold on to is this: there’s magic in believing, and these kids embody the idea that we can become anything we want—only better.

If you like this post, you might also enjoy A Chaotic Morning Reflection: In Feeling the Rain and A Quarter-Life Situation.