What makes one a teacher?

What makes a person a teacher? This is something that I have been mulling over in my brain for the past couple of days. As a home school mom of 3 school age children, I believe that I am a teacher.

I have a classroom complete with desks, computers, white boards and books.

I have a cute little reading nook...

All decked out with comfy pillows and inspirational posters...

A class room pet...

And students of course!

I stay up late grading papers and get up early to do research on the chosen topic of the day. I look for materials to decorate the classroom and provide a great learning environment. I read out loud, staple, cut and glue. I answer the questions that I do know, and find the answers to the ones I don't. But does all of that really make me a teacher? Well, when I got an email from the parent teacher store inviting me to come for Teacher appreciation day I was really excited. They were giving out little tokens of appreciation for all of the hard work that has been put into classrooms around our area. I went. I shopped. I got some great bulletin board displays and some new books for the summer. Upon my checking out at the register one of those tokens was placed in my bag. "Oh how nice" I thought. When she asked me where I taught, for she just knew I had to be a teacher with all of the supplies I bought for my classroom, I told her that I home schooled. Well, she just looked at me and said. "Oh, you home school"...She took that little token out of my bag and put it back on the shelf. I was offended, but tried to keep my composer as I looked at her and said "Yes, that's right, and I do believe that means I am a teacher."

Definition of TeacherTeacher 

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One who teaches or instructs; one whose business or occupation is to instruct others; an instructor; a tutor.

I would love to write more...but class is getting ready to start and I have to administer a math test, spelling test and listen to three children read aloud, which will take about an eternity. ;-)