The past couple weeks have filled my head with doubts about continuing to pursue a English education major to teach in Ky. Not that those doubts matter very much; I have been very honest with everyone, myself included, about selling my soul to the public education system in hopes that I can make it though college without acquiring mass amounts of debt.
The other day, a former teacher of mine brought it to my attention that unless I plan to marry for money instead of love, teaching is not going to be a career in ky that I can have a family and live off of. I cant imagine living anywhere else or wanting to do anything else with my life so this is rather heartbreaking.
I have put a lot of thought into if being poor is a sacrifice I want to make. Of course I cant say for sure until I am living and actually teaching, but I believe it is. Nobody wants to teach in Kentucky anymore and the poor qualities of people wanting to be educators has left the education system in a bind. Ky needs good teachers. There are students in this state that need to be loved and believed in. Without good teachers to help them find the joys of learning—- some joys in their life will be sacrificed.
This is a blog post to say that yes, I do want to pursue teaching in Ky even if it leaves me poor. I grew up poor and probably will die poor anyways. At the very least continuing to pursue this career will allow me to change the lives of at least one student. To me that is more important then anything else I could do with my life.