Melanie+Canaday,+Noyce+Fellow

<i Berkeley Middle School Contact Info: mcanaday@fergflor.k12.mo.us Why do I Teach I started teaching in public schools when my children were in middle school. I began teaching because I was concerned about my children’s education and became concerned about education as a process. I never planned to be a teacher. Growing up every woman I knew that had a job was a teacher. I wanted a career. I felt that teaching was a job that most people did for a time before they moved on to administration, home, or politics. Since becoming a teacher, I have found that it is not the static job I envisioned. It is an everchanging career. We all have a picture of what a teacher is and should be and when I started teaching, I believed I understood exactly what the profession required. Quickly I discovered that the job we all think we understand and can do is really not what it appears. Everyone has heard the statement, “Those who can’t teach”. Teaching requires skills and knowledge that until you are involved you are unaware of. I continue to teach because of this challenge. Before I taught, I worked in customer service related fields. I easily become bored with jobs. When I managed the customer service department for an automotive distributor, I found myself developing multiple ways to do the job and train others to do it. I don’t have to make challenges for myself in teaching, they are there already. Although I love challenges, they were times that I seriously contemplated if I wanted to continue to teach. By my 4th and 5th years of teaching, I started to really understand what I didn’t know about teaching. I taught as I had been trained to and I realized I was working really hard, but students weren’t making the growth I wanted. This was when my department chair talked me into beginning my master’s degree. The teachers I met and developed relationships with through that process were what kept me teaching. As a group we shared skills, strategy, and knowledge that made it possible for me to grow into the teacher I wanted to be. Although I am still working on being that teacher, I find that the relationships I develop with other teachers are what keep me moving forward. I found that there is something that I can learn from all of them. I find that I gain fresh ideas and enthusiasm from newer teachers and knowledge and skills from master teachers. I continue to teach, because I found in my fellow teachers the skills, strategies and knowledge, I needed to overcome all of those challenges that teaching brings.
 * Melanie Canaday, General Science**