The first thing I say is you have to have it in your heart to be a teacher. I’ve had other people that have talked to me that say ‘wow, you get three months off in the summer, what a great job that must be’. I realize those are not the people that I am really encouraging to be teachers because you don’t get three months off, you are spending your time preparing for the next year. If I were to encourage people to be a teacher, I would say you have to have a love for people, you have to have a love for the subject that you want to teach, and you have to have patience to realize that it takes time to get your love across to someone else. There’s a lot of outside work that has nothing to do with teaching. For example, I am the Drama coach and I spend every Monday afternoon coaching students as they are getting ready to do a play. We work on fundraisers for different things. There are numerous students who need letters of recommendation; they need college application help, all of this. So if you are considering being a teacher, recognize that it’s not just ‘go in the classroom, teach a lesson, walk out.’ But again, if you feel the desire, then you need to pursue it.