Personal Narrative-Shadowing The Career Field

Job shadowing is very vital to knowing what career field you are interested in. You can learn valuable information and even meet important people. It's hard choosing a career field and going and job shadowing is extremely helpful in the decision-making. In my experience job shadowing, I gained a great deal of respect for the job.

I job shadowed a middle school teacher about a month ago. I went one day with my best friend Jalavon to our old middle school. My host was Mrs. Hurd, previously known to me as Ms. Austin. She is a 6th grade ELA teacher and that's new as well because when she taught me, she was a math teacher.

A typical day for Mrs. Hurd would include making copies, grading papers, and caring for the students, among much more.

Mrs. Hurd showed me how much truly goes into teaching. There are para pros that work for the school and they help teachers when they are in need. They handle menial tasks for teachers. A typical work environment is the classroom and even the home. I observed that a class is much different when you're observing instead of being the student. You actually get to see the ins and outs of what goes into teaching.

I'm honestly not interested in taking up this career. Even with that realization, the experience was still very valuable. The most meaningful part to me was the questionnaire. Some real information was given out during this time. Things like all the extra hours put in besides the school day. This talk undoubtedly revealed how much you have to enjoy your career. It's a genuine care and want to teach kids. You need a bachelors degree and then to maintain teaching license, you must continue through graduate school.

I learned a plethora of information from my job shadowing experience. I gained tons more respect and knowledge. I believe it helped that I personally knew the teacher. She was able to give me the real 100% truth of how teaching is. I appreciated all the inside information I got. It helped me legitimately realize what I want to do in my life. Overall, I decided not to pursue teaching, but instead do something more to my liking.