One of the things that most scares me about the profession I’ve chosen to pursue is the tremendous emotional burden teachers have to shoulder. My father doesn’t talk much about his teaching job, so most of what I know on the subject derives from what my own teachers were willing to tell me. And though they were careful to remind me that all the stress is worth it, I still often get the feeling that they were minimizing the job’s hardships for my benefit.

They needn’t have bothered, because just this Monday I saw this in much greater depth. The PBS documentary “Only a Teacher” explores different areas of teaching in each of its episodes, and the second one dealt not just with professional issues — training, pay, working conditions and union rights — but also with teachers’ opinions of their profession. This particular episode focused on the experiences and emotional responses of four intern teachers in Cincinnati, whose special training programs entitled them to a full year in charge of their own classrooms as their final projects. They were all dedicated to their profession, whether they had come to it early or late; they were all willing to work hard to help students learn and grow; and they were all amazed, at the end of the year, by how great of an impact their students had had on them.

While the documentary didn’t make me think teaching would be easier — if anything, it seems even harder now — it did remind me how much the effort is worth it. In teaching, as in a few other professions, it seems as if the rewards are self-made: More than ever I feel reassured that it will be quite worth it.