Childhood Passions by Sarah Danco

My friends and I used to wake up really early and go downstairs with all of our stuff animals in our hands. We used to do this every time we had a sleepover. We would get up at 6:00 am and carry all of the stuffed animals we could find downstairs and pretending we were teachers. Even though getting up early was pretty tough it was so fun to play. My best friend Rachel always played it with me whenever she came over. She would always bring a bunch of her stuffed animals so we could play. One of her stuffed horses was as big as a real horse. When we would play we’d split all of the stuffed animals up into two different parts of the room and teach them. We liked to pretend they were in kindergarten because at our age it seemed to be the easiest thing to teach. When we pretended that are kids got in trouble we would yell at them really loud sometimes so loud it would wake up my parents. One time when I played with Rachel she yelled at them, “If you don’t be quiet now you are going into timeout.” Sometimes we’d even pretend that we had a real active board in my living room. We would get a bunch of chairs and place them around the room and put our stuffed animals in and make it look like we were actually teaching a class. Just looking out at the sea of stuff animals and all of the books and pens laying around made it feel like a real kindergarten classroom. A couple of months before we staring doing this I got a little training teacher’s kit for kids that had maps, fake hall passes, mini report cards and a mini white and blackboard. Ever since I got it, my friends and I used it every time we hung out. My twin sister would play with us sometimes, but she always complained that the game wasn’t fair so she stop playing. She would always say “I never get to do what I want when we play this game.” As we got older we started to change it up a little bit and she started playing with us again.           

                  As we got older we stopped using stuffed animals and just pretended that we had people right in front of us. We would find worksheets online and pretend to grade them and we would make little folders for each pretend student we had. Making little report cards and worksheet is something I remember doing a lot when we played it.  We had so much stuff that it could take up a whole bookcase.  Just imagine walking into my basement and seeing all of the shelves full of stuffed we used. I used to have this big planner that I would write the plans for what we were going to teach them. My sister and I literally pretended that we were working at a school. We would even sometimes act like we were typing on a real laptop. After so many years of playing teacher, my parents started to notice that it was something I really like to do.  My parents got me a play laptop and another big planner for me to use. When they got me that it made the game more and more involved in how it was in reality. As I got older I started thinking about teaching in real life. My friends didn’t really like to play it anymore once we were in about fourth grade. If we had a sleepover we didn’t play teacher. Instead we would paint nails and do things that most girls did. I didn’t really play much after that but sometimes I still did. When fifth grade came I didn’t play the game anymore, I worked on school and when I was with my friends we started playing sports. I didn’t mind not playing anymore, I just outgrew it and I moved on to something else that was more my age. Looking back I actually really miss playing teacher because it really thought me a lot, was really fun and as a kid it seemed so important to me to play it all the time.

Pretending to be a teacher as a kid and doing it more and more as I got older has helped me make some big decisions about what I want to have as my profession. The game really changed me even though that sounds a little weird, but pretending to be a teacher has made me want to become one. Ever since the first time I played the game with my best friend I have really thought about becoming a teacher and I am going to try to accomplish that. I am going to take classes about teaching in high school and in college and then after college hopefully get a job teaching. If I never pretended to be a teacher as I kid, I probably would not be already making life changing decisions about what I want to do.  Many people have told me that I can become a teacher and I believe that I can if I work hard enough. Wanting to be a teacher has been a big part of my life and without what I did as a kid I don’t think I would be trying to accomplish what I am today.