Thank You Teachers

Inspiration for some of my blogs can emerge from some of the most unlikely places.  I was recently sitting behind a car at a red light when I saw a bumper sticker that said: “If you can read this, thank a teacher.”  Immediately I thought of myself as a kid in elementary school with my class issued reading book, and I smiled to myself.  I’ve seen this bumper sticker before in other places, but this time it brought back some recent thoughts that I had about the tireless efforts of teachers.  Having said that, I wanted to write my blog this week as a thank you to teachers at all levels.

The gratitude that we should have for teachers and educators was already on my mind because of some stories that I had recently seen about Strawberry Mansion High School in Philadelphia, and Trenton Central High School in New Jersey.  The story about Strawberry Mansion High School followed Assistant Superintendent for the school district, Linda Cliatt-Wayman.  She was serving as a volunteer principal at the school because it had gone through four principles in four years.  The school has been deemed one of the most dangerous high schools in the nation, and currently has 94 security cameras as well as metal detectors.  Despite all of this, Ms. Cliatt-Wayman was willing to volunteer to be their principal to save the school from being closed down.  While the story about the school was eye opening, my thoughts turned to the teachers in that school.  I thought about how difficult it must be to teach in such conditions, yet they still show up to work every day for their students.

The story about Trenton Central High School in New Jersey was about a building that was falling apart.  The structure of the building had been so deteriorated that there were walls with mildew and mold as well as leaking roofs.  After seeing the conditions shown, I was shocked that the building hadn’t been condemned for safety and health reasons.  But once again, when I saw this story, I thought about the teachers.  They were expected to perform their jobs in conditions that were not fit for anyone to work under.

I have a lot of friends who are teachers in Pre-K – 12 education and some who are professors in college, so I believe that’s why I think of teachers when I see stories like that.  Granted the schools mentioned are some extreme examples that made the news but there are schools all over our nation that have dilapidated buildings and low to no resources for our teachers to use.  While there are some schools who could be confused for a small college based on their facilities and amenities, there is a common thread among teachers, and that is that they give of themselves every day for their students. 

Teachers unfortunately don’t get paid lavishly for the work that they do, and sometimes end up spending some of their own money on their classrooms.  They are also under a fair amount of stress to perform on a regular basis, but they make a difference in the lives of our nation’s youth every day.  From comforting a child who skins their knee on the playground, to breaking up fights, to spending time after class to make sure that their students understand the material taught, our teachers are a valuable asset to the advancement of our nation. 

The time and effort our teachers put in with their students leads to the education of our future leaders in any occupation you can think of.  It is easy to take for granted the hard work of our teachers because many of them make it look easy, but it’s important that we show our gratitude to them and let them know they are appreciated.  They take the time to create lesson plans, stay for parent teacher conferences, grade homework, and attend in-services on some holidays.   There are also some teachers who take the time to coach athletic teams, run music programs or direct theater productions after putting in a full day with their students.  This effort, and their constant care and concern for their students is why I’d like to say not only thank you to the teachers that I’ve had, but thank you to teachers everywhere.

 

Thankful for Good...and Bad?

As the Thanksgiving Holiday draws closer by the hour, we see on many social media networks people asking friends to post what they are thankful for.  This is certainly the perfect season to be pensive of what we appreciate and to share that gratitude with our friends and family as we all get together and reconnect this upcoming weekend.  There is plenty in my life that I am grateful for, and the ease of creating such a list is something in and of itself I am thankful for.  I won’t bore you with my full inventory here, but as I watched others post their thankful lists on Facebook, some by the day, others by the week, I started to notice a pattern.  I noticed that so many things were related to family, pets, jobs, and all around very positive feel-good type things.  This got me to start thinking (not in a scrooge bah-humbug way) but what about the not-so-good things; can we be thankful for those too?  In that moment, I found this week’s blog.

I started to think about the potential for being thankful for the unconventional not-so-good things that people usually aren’t thankful for.  I wondered if I could still be thankful for some of those things even though in the moment it was painful and difficult and the answer was, “Yes”.  You’re probably thinking I went off the deep end and how could that be so, but it’s possible.  I’ve written about finding a silver lining in a previous post titled ‘When Life Happens…’ but this is something a little bit different.  I’m referring to being thankful for something after the event or occurrence has happened in a reflection for how it has contributed to making us a better and stronger person, not just finding something positive in the moment to get through it.  I’m also not saying you should be thankful for every bad thing that has happened to you, but there are some that might not be as bad when we look back on it.

A prime personal example of that was the end of my dream of becoming a doctor.  As a child, adults always ask, “What you want to be when you grow up?”.  For as long as I can remember my answer was consistently ‘A doctor’.  In college my experiences coaching youth basketball, volunteering as a mentor for kids, and substitute teaching narrowed my answer down to ‘A Pediatrician’.  The next thing I knew I was walking across the stage with a Pre-Med Physiology degree, but I had received rejection letters from the medical schools that I applied to.  Instead of becoming a Pediatrician, I pursued a Master’s Degree in Health Communications.  While in that program I was an Assistant Hall Director and discovered and built a career in Student Affairs.  I couldn’t have been more thankful for those med. school rejection letters because student affairs (Residence Life to be specific) was where I had some of the most amazing experiences, and met an abundance of wonderful people, staff and students.  At the time yes, the rejection letters were devastating, but I could never have predicted such a bright light at the end of the tunnel and looking back on it, I am thankful for what it lead to.

When asked what we are thankful for we tend to focus on the easy things that make us happy and that are positive. There’s nothing wrong with that because that’s great, I always encourage positivity.  But it’s also important to reflect on the tough times that have made us who we are today.  The things many people focus on as regrets, are instead the events and occurrences that have given us an opportunity to be stronger, smarter, and better people.  I’m not saying you should ruin your Thanksgiving by flooding your thoughts with bad stuff that has happened to you.  However it is important to think about the things that have made you who you are today, that may not have been ideal at the time but now could be something you would be thankful for happening because without it, you would never be who you are today.  We should learn to live our lives with no regrets.  Stop looking back and saying “I could’ve, would’ve, should’ve”.  The bottom line is that it happened, and you can move forward carrying with you the knowledge and experience gained to make your own life and the lives of others better.  We can be thankful for those times as well as everything else that is feel-good and positive.