My parents were teachers; my grandparents were teachers and I took teacher training and started teaching while still a student in high school. I took education classes at the University of Maryland, but was not impressed with the methodology and was told by my parents that it was not a good time to teach in American schools because of the lack of discipline and teacher abuse.
I have been in an instructor in the navy, at work as part of my job as a senior Electro-Mechanical quality control inspector, and at various other jobs including being a floor manager in a very high pressure fundraising job.
I did not directly teach and tutor as a full time occupation until I went to China where I have had over 60,000 students in the private and public sector. I have taught the very young (18 months) and some senior citizens. My teaching has not been just of the ESL variety as I have had to prepare Chinese students to come to Canada to study and that required me to teach history, geography, composition and other subjects demanded by the head of the Canadian Program.
I am a very active and engaged teacher whether my classroom size is 60 or am tutoring just one student. I have been able to make my own teaching materials for classrooms equipped with computers or as at one school where there were no desks, no books, no chalkboards or whiteboards, only students very eager to learn.
That is why I taught in China and loved it.