Why do I want to be a teacher?

I have my "Intro to Secondary Education" class on Wednesday nights from 6:00 pm to 8:50 pm. To be perfectly honest, it's about as exciting as it sounds. Meaning: not a lot. The teacher is boring and the class is full of people that I would NOT want teaching the next generation, but I digress.
That class is one of the hardest classes...to stay awake in. My mind wanders. My legs get antsy. My butt falls asleep. Overall, it's not a good experience. However, the thing that most intrigued me was this question: "Why do you want to be a teacher?" A common question brought up in the teaching department. Most of the answers were the usual, "I like working with kids," or, "I have the freedom to teach how I want," and so on and so forth. The rest of the class, my mind was elsewhere. My mind was off constructing every reason why I desire to have this profession.

Tangent:
When I went into college, I was a Marketing major with a minor in International Business. Too much math. Next. I then changed to an Advertising Major with a minor in International Business. However, I soon realized that being in advertisement meant swaying people in one direction or another to buy your product. I didn't want to persuade people. I didn't want to end up lying to people. So that's when some self analyzation had to come into play. What would I do with my life? What COULD I do with my life? Then I remembered that first day of 8th grade art, and walking into that art classroom.


And that's all it took for me to realize what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted other people/students to feel the way I did. I wanted students to realize that there was more to life than just passing through it, trying to get to the destination. My AP art teacher taught me this: "Life is not about the destination, it's about the journey." It's not about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself. I want students to realize that art is all around them, like I did when my Art History teacher took us to Chicago. I started noticing that everything around me was about art and about appreciation. I wanted students to feel inspired...and thrilled...and overwhelmed. I want them to enjoy at least a little bit of their school day, if that's the smallest part that I could offer.

I hope I can do these things. I hope I can shape and mold the next generation into a more enlightened youth. I want to leave a mark on the world, and this is how I'm going to do it.