How to Know If You’re Called to Be a Teacher

You’ve noticed it more than once. A conversation with a teenager that went deeper than you expected. A moment helping someone understand something and feeling more alive than you have all week. A growing frustration that you’re spending your working life doing something competent but not meaningful.

Maybe people have told you — “you’d make a great teacher.” Maybe you’ve dismissed it. Maybe you haven’t.

This article is for the person who’s carrying that thought around and doesn’t know what to do with it. Not a checklist that tells you what you want to hear, but an honest look at what the pull toward teaching actually feels like, what it demands, and how to tell the difference between a genuine calling and a passing interest.

There’s a free reflection worksheet at the end if you want to work through this more deliberately.

What does “called to teach” actually mean?

In Christian thinking, a calling isn’t a mystical voice from the sky. It’s the intersection of what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what God is drawing you toward. The Reformers had a word for this — vocation — and they applied it to every kind of work, not just ministry. Martin Luther argued that the cobbler who made good shoes was serving God just as much as the priest.

Teaching fits this framework precisely. It’s skilled work that serves other people. It requires genuine gifting — not everyone can do it well. And the need is acute: Australia’s teacher shortage means the “what the world needs” part of the equation is answered emphatically.

But calling isn’t the same as career interest. You might be interested in teaching because it offers job security, good holidays, and a salary that starts at $90,177 in NSW. Those are legitimate reasons. They’re just not a calling. A calling is what makes you stay when the holidays feel too short, the marking pile is relentless, and the Year 9 class has decided collectively that they don’t care about anything you’ve prepared.

So how do you tell the difference?

Seven signs you might be called to teach

These aren’t pass/fail criteria. They’re patterns that people who thrive in teaching tend to recognise in themselves — usually before they’ve set foot in a classroom professionally.

1. You explain things and people actually understand

Not because you talk slowly or use simple words. Because you instinctively find the angle that makes something click for someone else. You rephrase without being asked. You reach for analogies. You notice when someone’s nodding but not following and you adjust.

This is a teaching skill. Most people don’t have it naturally. If you do, it’s worth paying attention to.

2. You care about young people — specifically, not abstractly

There’s a difference between “I care about the future of young people” (which is a belief) and “I spent forty minutes after church talking to a 15-year-old about why she’s thinking of dropping out” (which is evidence). Called teachers tend to have the second pattern. They don’t just think young people matter. They show up for them, often without being asked.

3. You’re bothered by injustice in education

You read about schools in western Sydney struggling to find qualified maths teachers and it genuinely irritates you. You see a kid being written off and something in you pushes back. You notice that some students get better opportunities than others and you want to do something about it — not just feel bad about it.

This isn’t sentimentality. It’s the kind of conviction that sustains a career when the system is frustrating.

4. You’ve been doing it informally already

Sunday School. Youth group. Tutoring a friend’s kid. Running training at work. Coaching a sports team. Mentoring someone younger. If you’re already teaching without being paid for it, that’s a strong signal. Calling often shows up as what you do when nobody’s making you.

5. The idea keeps coming back

You looked at teaching courses two years ago and closed the tab. Then you thought about it again six months later. Someone mentioned it at a dinner and you felt a flicker of something you couldn’t quite explain. Now you’re reading this article.

Passing interests fade. Callings persist. The fact that you keep circling back to this idea — even after dismissing it — is itself data.

6. You want to shape how people think, not just what they know

If your instinct is to help someone pass an exam, you might be a good tutor. If your instinct is to help someone become a better thinker, a more curious person, someone who asks questions rather than just absorbing answers — that’s a teacher’s instinct. It’s the difference between information transfer and formation.

In Christian terms, this connects to something deeper. Teaching at its best is formational work — shaping how students see themselves, their world, and their place in it. That’s why Alphacrucis University College, as a Christian institution, treats education as a vocation with spiritual weight, not just a professional pathway.

7. You’re willing to be changed by the process

Teaching changes the teacher. It demands patience you don’t naturally have. It exposes gaps in your knowledge. It puts you in front of 25 people who will test every assumption you hold about yourself. The people who thrive aren’t the ones who arrive fully formed — they’re the ones willing to be shaped by the work.

Briar Marshall, a Bachelor of Education student studying through a Teaching School Hub in Tasmania, describes it plainly:

“Being taught as a Christian educator means what I learn in the classroom actually flows into all areas of life. I have grown closer to God, mainly because the classes are taught from Biblical perspectives.”

The teaching changed her — not just professionally, but personally and spiritually. That’s what formational education looks like.

What calling isn’t

It’s worth naming what this article isn’t saying. A calling to teach doesn’t mean:

You need to feel 100% certain before you start. Most teachers describe their sense of calling as something that strengthened during their training, not before it. Starting with 60% conviction and growing from there is normal.

You need to be naturally patient. Patience is a skill you develop, not a prerequisite. Some of the best teachers are people who had to learn patience the hard way — which is exactly why they’re good at teaching it to students.

Teaching will always feel fulfilling. It won’t. There will be terms that grind. There will be students who don’t respond. There will be paperwork that feels pointless. Calling sustains you through those seasons — it doesn’t exempt you from them.

You need to have loved school yourself. Plenty of excellent teachers had mediocre school experiences. Sometimes it’s precisely the experience of not being taught well that creates the drive to teach better.

How faith shapes the question

For Christians, the question “am I called to teach?” sits inside a bigger question: “what is God inviting me into?”

That doesn’t mean God has one specific plan and you need to decode it like a puzzle. It means paying attention to the evidence — your gifts, your experiences, the feedback you’ve received, the needs you can see, and the pull you can’t quite shake — and asking honestly whether teaching is where those things converge.

Naomi Cantwell, studying her Bachelor of Education online from Victoria, describes this convergence:

“Studying with AC has been paradigm shifting. I’m really enjoying learning how my faith fits in with my future career and my life. Having started at AC I feel the call to equip and disciple. Seeing teaching through a biblical lens has really reignited my passion!”

Notice what she says: “the call to equip and disciple.” For Naomi, teaching isn’t separate from her faith — it’s an expression of it. That’s what studying education at a Christian university college can surface. It doesn’t create the calling. It helps you recognise it and gives you language for it.

Alphacrucis is the official training college of Australian Christian Churches (ACC) and has been forming Christian educators since 1948. Its education degrees are NESA accredited and AITSL recognised — graduates teach in government, Catholic, and Independent schools across every state. But the distinctiveness isn’t the accreditation. It’s that every subject asks the question secular programmes don’t: what does it mean to teach as someone who believes every student is made in the image of God?

A practical way forward

If you’ve read this far and the pull is still there, here are three concrete steps — not commitments, just steps:

1. Download the reflection worksheet. It’s a set of guided questions designed to help you think through what you’ve noticed about yourself, what’s drawing you toward teaching, and what’s holding you back. It’s not a quiz with a score. It’s a thinking tool. Download the worksheet (PDF).

2. Talk to someone who teaches. Not for advice — for information. Ask them what a Wednesday in Term 3 actually looks like. Ask them what they love and what they’d change. Ask them whether they’d do it again.

3. Explore the pathway. If you’ve got Year 12 or equivalent, the Bachelor of Education is a four-year path to full registration. If you’ve already got a degree in any discipline, the Master of Teaching takes two years. If you’re over 21 without formal qualifications, Alphacrucis offers provisional entry — no ATAR required. Commonwealth Supported Places can reduce your fees by around 75%. See the complete guide to CSPs for a full breakdown.

Start with the worksheet. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing — except being honest with yourself about what you’ve been carrying around.