How To Become a Teacher — Caitlyn Clarkson

Intro: How To Become a Teacher

Stu­dent: Miss Clark­son. I owe the world to Ms. Clarkson.

CC: I think you have to be able to appre­ci­ate indi­vid­ual dif­fer­ences. If you can’t, then you won’t know your stu­dents, and you won’t get the best out of them.

Sec­ond Intro: This is HowtoBecome.tv.

CC: My name is Cait­lyn Clark­son, and I’m a Biol­ogy teacher at Nancy Camp­bell Col­le­giate Insti­tute. And, I really love teach­ing because I really like con­nect­ing with stu­dents that are inter­ested in the subject.

CC: The biggest sur­prise for me about teach­ing was that I liked it. I was sur­prised. I think I would tell any teacher in their first year, know your sub­ject. Do some back­ground research and make your notes ahead of time. It is so help­ful to have a binder of notes already pre­pared or note­book already pre­pared on the sub­ject, because you’re always going to be asked ques­tions that might be a lit­tle tricky to answer. You may know the answer; it’s on the tip of your tongue, but if you have a note­book already pre­pared, it’s much eas­ier to refresh the night before.

Stu­dent: I owe the world to Ms. Clark­son. Can I tell you why? I have a job after school and before school. I wouldn’t have that job– it’s an actual job. I wouldn’t have that job if it wasn’t for Ms. Clarkson.

CC: When I first started teach­ing, I think, the stu­dents thought I was so strict. And I didn’t know, but every­one said that they were so afraid of me. I was going to be such a hard marker, and I was expect­ing per­fec­tion. And I sat down with them and worked through their papers, one by one, and said, “You know by the end of the semes­ter you’re going to be writ­ing fan­tas­tic essays,” and they are. So that’s really one of the most reward­ing things.

I would like the teach­ers of my chil­dren to be kind and patient. I think they are so young that they still have minds that are grow­ing. They need some­one that will be a guid­ing hand, and let them learn at their own pace, and let them learn the things that they need to learn. Every­one has their own path.

End­ing: What do you want to be when you grow-up?