Posts
I want all of us to stop for a moment and think about your favorite teacher. Think about why they were your favorite and how you felt when you were around them. What was so important about them that you remember them as if they were in the room with you?
Teachers can make a real impact on a child. I realize the bad ones are just as memorable, but as always the optimist, I'd rather discuss the good ones. The favorites, are people who went to work one day and changed the life of a child, namely you and me.
My grandmother, several uncles and aunts, and cousins were and some continue to be, teachers. I was surrounded by educators. This made holidays interesting. God help the poor buzzard whose grammar was off that day, or couldn't tally the score of the card game fast enough, or even worse, misquoted someone in making a point. The room would become a hotbed of teachers making corrections, quoting their sources and grading the final outcome. It wasn't always an easy environment, but I love teachers because of my relativity to them.
I could never imagine myself as a teacher. I was telling a friend that I was going to go back to school and finish my degree. Teaching came up as what she thought was a viable option. While she was telling me what a great teacher I would make, I pictured myself being stuck by a thousand pins as a better alternative. I have seen people insides come out and say hello. I have touched actually bones, including a spine, dealt with gangrene, projectile vomiting that reached the doorway from across the room and pulled toes off with a sock from a homeless person and I am telling you, I do not have the stomach for teaching.
Teachers are people with infinite patience, commitment to the future and eternal optimism. These people make me look like a complete cynic. They show up early, stay late, and make call after call in order to help their students. They deal with drugs, weapons, fights and algebra. It boggles my mind as to what motivation they have to keep showing up. Being a teacher sounds great in theory, having summers off, until you get a look at their pay. The lack of funding has these poor folks (literally poor) buying school supplies out of their own pockets.
I know teachers already have an assigned week of let's all get together and bring them cookies. But I want is something more than just a luncheon. Please this week, thank them for showing up. Sometimes the greatest thing a person can do is simply show up. Let them know how much you appreciate their hard work and ability to keep from killing certain children (everybody knows which kids these are). A simple "Thank You" note may just be the thing that reminds them why they became teachers in the first place. In mine I plan on letting them know, if it were left up to me, the kids would run amok and be dumb as mud.
