You bless lives

 To all the beautiful teachers,

A semester before I graduated college I had a meeting with my absolute favorite professor. She taught most of my early childhood education classes. She asked me what my plans were for my career. I told her I wanted to teach Kindergarten and then maybe someday become a college professor so I could come back and help people become good teachers. She joked that I wanted to follow her career path. I said, absolutely. 

During our conversation we talked about what being a teacher, and an early childhood education teacher specifically was like. She joked that we don't always get the recognition we deserve. That someday when kids are graduating from High School they would be thanking all their coaches and high school teachers, but always seemed to forget those teachers from their younger years. My favorite line from the conversation had to be, "I taught you how to read, damn it" 

I have seriously been considering getting a job outside of education. As many teachers recently have. If you decided to leave, good for you. I hope a new path is what you need to heal from what a disaster these past few years of teaching have been. Tonight I decided write out all my thoughts on why I want to either stay or maybe leave. 

Here's where I'm at 

1. I'm good at my job

2. I love spending my days with small humans

And that's a far as I got before I realized that those 2 things are all I really need. And leaving education for some stuffy office job would NEVER give me the satisfaction that seeing a child read for the first time can. Working in an office job, while maybe a way to gain more worldly "success" to me that success doesn't really compare to helping shape little humans into good people. 

As I pondered these versions of success one simple thought popped into my head. 3 simple words that describe teaching

You bless lives. 

That's what we do as teachers. We bless the lives of not only the little or medium or sometimes big humans that enter our classroom everyday, but also the other teachers around us. We get to have a lasting impact on others that doesn't often get acknowledged. So this is me acknowledging you. And reminding you that you bless lives,

Every damn day. 

And they may not remember you in their graduation speeches or as they get accepted to their dream college. But what you do every single day matters. And not because of the stupid testing scores. But because everyday you show up for the children in your classroom. You show up when you are exhausted. You show up when your personal life is falling apart. You show up when all you really wanted to do was lay in bed all day long. You've showed up through an ongoing pandemic. 

You show up. 

When all anyone wants to talk about are graduation rates and test scores, you see the human being behind it. You teach little ones how to handle big emotions and teach big ones how to navigate the world. You listen to people with no idea what your job really entails tell you what you are doing wrong. And then you smile, ignore them, and continue to give everything you have for the children in your classroom. 

I know that you don't hear it often but what you are doing is more than enough. If you created a space where your students felt safe today, you were successful. If a child laughed in your classroom today, you were successful. If they got to forget about the hard things they might be facing outside of school for just a little bit, you were successful. 

There will always be more to do and never enough time or money to do it. So have the dance party, do the art project, watch the movie, read the silly story. Do more of what makes you happy and they will find happiness too. If they are happy today, they will learn tomorrow. 

Even though we never become rich and famous for what we do, it's beyond valuable. 

You matter. You are enough. And you are a successful teacher because you keep showing up. 

Love 

Nae