When I think about teaching, I go back to something I once heard. “You can never step in the same river twice.” At first thought you tell yourself, “Of course I can step in the same river twice. Here is the river I just stepped in, watch me step in it again.” When you take time for a closer look, however, you find that this phrase is more than true. Water is always running through the river. The molecules that you stepped in a moment ago are not going to be the same molecule you would step in now, or ten minutes from now, or ever. Even if you'd kept your foot in the water the whole time, everything would still be different.

This is how I look at teaching. Like stepping into a river, I can influence where I step in and how I prepare myself for what I might find, but I can never tell you the exact combination of forces I will encounter on any given day. Students are much like the molecules of water that flow through the river. They're on their way to something larger, and they might get stuck along the way, or have to start over again, but eventually they'll make their way to the sea.
When I step into my classroom, I know that things aren't going to be the same every day. I see my students for perhaps an hour of every 24 that they're alive, I have to be flexible to situations that are out of my control.  This doesn't mean that I'm going to bend over backwards for the needs of my students, but I do know that I need to have the spirit of understanding to make things easier for everyone.
There are things that must be done. We're all in school for a purpose. Students need to learn, but not necessarily by being spoon fed by me. As a teacher it's my job to facilitate my students learning by using a number of teaching methods. I want students to be able to form their own knowledge through my guidance, because I know that I'm not the end-all authority on any topic, let alone all of them.
I know that there is material that has to be covered. It's important to give students the knowledge they need to achieve on standardized tests, but it's also important the student learn the skills that they will need to succeed in life. I will do my best to work these two goals into one set of subject matter that will benefit students the most.

I've decided to pursue teaching to make an impact on student's lives. There are a lot of things that I could say about how I've prepared myself, or what exactly I'm going to do in the classroom, but I know those things will change with time. The one thing that I can honestly say every day that I go into the classroom is that I'm there for the good of the students. I want them to learn, I want them to succeed and I want them to go on to live productive lives. There's nothing else that I’d rather spend my time doing.