Thursday, May 8, 2025

Teacher Appreciation Week

It has been almost one year since I stepped out of full time classroom teaching.  That's a hard thought for me because there have been times in my life when I thought of teacher as my identity (thankfully, God knocked that out of me about ten years ago, or I couldn't do what I'm doing now). But I still interact with my teachers as I sub and speak at education conference, not to mention most of my friends are teachers.  

So, this week, I want to give a big shout out to the people who persevere, pouring their hearts, minds, and energy into the work of training up the next generation.  Here goes:
---------------------


Teachers, your task is difficult.  It may, in fact, be impossible.  You walk into a classroom every day, expected to equip, challenge, and inspire every student, regardless of background, home support, past educational experience, or interest level in your subject.  You may or may not have the support of your administration when it comes to classroom disruptions.  You likely don’t have the budget you need to properly carry out the things you would like to do, so you employ your creative skills to work around lack of supplies. As with all of the other issues in our society, education has become polarized along political lines, and you are in the middle, just trying to do your job. 


And you do it. You do it well. You do it because you know kids need you to do it.


Every day, you equip your students with the information they need to be good decision-makers.  This

is no small task, especially in an ever changing technological, political, and social landscape.

You fight the people who say they never use algebra because you know that they use the thought

processes of algebra daily. You overcome the fact that someone's mom didn't like the Scarlet Letter

or thinks teaching poetry is dumb because you know that the analytical skills that accompany analysis

of complex texts are important for the developing mind. You insist on the proper ending to chemical

formulas because getting it right can literally be the difference between life and death. You make them

memorize even though it isn't fun because you know the act of memorizing strengthens their brains,

no matter what some TikTok influencer says.  The mere act of equipping them is Herculean, and

it is the most basic level of your job.  


American teachers, you are also meant to challenge students at all levels of the ability spectrum (I

understand this might be different in other places).  In the same classroom, you have a child with

profound learning disabilities and those with intelligence higher than your own and the full spectrum

of academic levels in between.  You have students who may have had a bad experience with science

or math in the past and enter your classroom skittish while others suggest lab experiments to you

because they spend their free time reading about them online.  You know differentiation isn't really

possible, but you try. You ask ALL of them to perform better than they believe they are able to at things

they don’t think they are good at.  You are supposed to be fun and joyful and engaging while you

demand more from a child than the child (and sometimes their parents) think you should be asking for

because you know meeting challenges is good for the soul.


The best of you inspire, asking your students to look beyond the grade, the curriculum, and the tests to

see what they can do with their education. You have a student who “doesn’t like art” on the first day

they enter your classroom who will tell stories someday about the teacher who made them care about

the what the Dada movement was trying to accomplish or have an emotional reaction in a museum. 

Some may go into medicine because you taught them anatomy, but most will simply be enriched by

having a better understanding of their own body.  You build up students into people with a broader

view of the world than they would have if you hadn’t been their teacher. 


And that is just the academic part of your job; I have not included all of the social counseling, emotional

baggage, and safety concerns you keep in balance.  You know which students shouldn’t be put in a group

together and who needs a friend to sit with at lunch.  You are the frontline of reporting abuse and the

shoulder to cry on for many students and colleagues.  You make hundreds of decisions per day, often

without time to reflect on them thoroughly. 


Now, you know why you are so tired on Friday afternoons.


This teacher appreciation week, I hope you got some of the love an gratitude you deserve.



No comments:

Post a Comment

Methods of Encoding - Extension

"Miss Hawks. We talked about you over the weekend," said my excited 8th grader.  This makes me nervous. Who knows if things I say ...