No, I’m not a teacher, I’m actually a college student who’s going into a scientific field, but I’ve taught sunday school before and I’m constantly asked to TA a couple different classes (I’m finally doing it next year), if that counts? And, my mom homeschooled us for a while, and now works in the education system, so we have long conversations about things like this from time to time. Plus, I tend to be very observant when it comes to people and watching them interact with each other and the world around them.
The ‘you have to work for something to appreciate it’ idea for me personally mostly comes from grade inflation - I’m studying hard sciences of various kinds, and was in engineering school, both of which require you to work your butt off just to pass on a big curve, and you pretty much have to be super-human to get ‘good’ grades. Then, there are girls like my neighbors, who are majoring in humanities fields where their professors say things like “If you don’t get an A, you aren’t trying” so they can party past 3 AM every weekend and past midnight on weekdays and still get a comfortable 3.5 GPA... It’s annoying, but I just reassure myself that they could never make it out in the ‘real world’ if their daddy or their rich boyfriend ever stopped dumping money in their laps.
You’re on the right path. Keep it up.