What I Want to Teach
Many people ask me if teaching is the route I want to go with my life. Sometimes, I get hesitant to say yes because it is a route that scares me, but I know I wouldn’t want to take any other road. I need the challenge, the motivation, and the love it has given me. So, here’s a poem about what I want to teach:
What I Want to Teach
When people ask me,
why do you want to teach?
You make so little.
It’s not worth it.
I smile.
You want something that is worth more,
but do you know what I want?
I want to teach my students
not to fill in circles
but to think outside the box.
To stain their minds with the words written by authors
and their hands with the ink of their own words.
To appreciate the beauty of words not spoken
and then how to write them too.
To compose the songs and lyric they often dream of
and to spend their lives learning to love.
To smile
and to make their lives worthwhile.
To let words pain
and seep into the deeper, darker corners of their minds.
To set out upon the roads that inspire them
and to inspire others around them.
To accept everyone around them
and to love them all the same.
To include those around them
and to do the challenging and uncomfortable.
To know their disabilities do not define them
and to know they are beautiful and loved and amazing.
To know how to laugh, to have fun, to enjoy
and to never abandon those who aren’t.
To be thirsty for knowledge
and hungry for the unexplored.
To believe in the impossible
and to know nothing can constrain them from reaching it.
You see,
it doesn’t matter if I “make so little”
because this is worth so much more than the paycheck,
and guess what?
I get to follow my dreams.
