You don't have time to read this, and if you are, you are in serious procrastination mode. For whatever reason, you're scanning Twitter for some sort of something and somehow you came across this post. It's Teacher Appreciation Week and although a week from yesterday, I'll be hosting a Celebration for Teachers and Teaching for Fairfield University, and this Saturday I'm taking part in the first-ever Northeast Writing Project conference in a celebration of teaching (you can register here), I have all my teaching friends on my mind today.
I'm posting simply as a kind gesture. It's sort-of weak, but all I've got right now.
In KY, every teacher-celebration week, I would work with my students to gift cards and tokens to every other teacher in the building. I knew then that our occupation was emptying the ocean with a spoon (and have learned since that teachers are really handed a fork). I also know that teaching is the only occupation that puts duct tape over our mouths, boulders and chains around our ankles, blinders on our eyes, and cloth around are wrists, telling us to swim across Olympic pools in record times. It's that impossible. Still, we go forward, do the work with integrity, and model excellence despite the fools that lead us.
This is why, yesterday, when Dr. Beth Boquet stopped by with two celebratory cookies, I had to stop and think about what it means to be excellent. Beth is a brilliant human being on a million and one fronts. Since I arrived to CT, she's taken me under her wing, guided me, listened to me, and even collaborated on a few K-12 projects. She gets teaching and she sees the work CWP does in local schools. She brought over two cookies ("They're are for Teacher Appreciation Week") and one was for Edem. He's not a teacher, but she didn't want him to be cookie-less. She's that great. Two random cookies delivered with an appreciation.
It was that simple.
And it helped me to think about others like her - teachers who are looking out for teachers... the ones who take care of one another. They lift the profession....while so many labor to pull it down (once again, it's why I love the National Writing Project family. Lift. Lift higher. Let's lift some more).
The best teachers aren't stuck in classrooms alone. They lift curriculum and possibilities beyond school. They life life.
I'm blessed, because I student taught, was guided, received mentorship, and continue to have a friendship with Sue McV....an angel on earth who is now retired, but still finds ways to teach, learn, explore, share, and give. It is because of educators like Beth and Sue that I am empowered to do more, be more, read more, and help more.
I'm blessed because of teacher-leaders like Jean Wolph, the Director of the Louisville Writing Project who invested in me and 19 other educators at Central High School (home to the one and only Cassius Clay) one summer in celebration of the profession, writing, and professional development dreams.
From time to time I teach Philosophy of Education and read Jane Addams and John Dewey with my students, highlighting the progressive democratic model of learning vs. the administrative model of learning. We've definitely reached the horror show that they warned about, where politicians empower administrators who make horrific decisions for classrooms, paralyzing kids, belittling teachers, and acting as total numb-skulls.
This post is not for those individuals. They are obvious. The best teachers see them, lay low, and continue to do good work despite their moronic tendencies.
Nope, today I wish I had the ability to bake A+ cookies for teachers in every school who are doing the good work...the ones that, beyond the insanity of this year on all fronts, have shown up, focused, and cared for the young people on their roster. I know the majority of these educators would say that the payback comes from the kids...the rewards are intrinsic joy and the beauty of seeing student growth. But dang it...these teachers deserve more. They deserve a nation that invests in classrooms, offers more supplies, assures great books are flowing in every year, provide smaller ratios between teachers and students, offer mental space for teachers to regroup and rethink, fund travel to local and state conferences, and design professional development that is kid/teacher up rather than corporation/administrator down. They deserve national leaders to stand against the testing bonanza that destroys learning in our nation's schools, and to see that such investment isn't just a charade of rhetoric.
For those in the classroom doing the good work this week and always, I applaud you. Now, with 25 years in public schools and the past 11 years in University life, I can assure you that what you do is astounding...immeasurable...and much more deserving than what is brought your way. And I applaud those, even more, who not only take the crazy thrown upon them, but continue to counter it with focus, rhythm, happiness, and pride (hint: you are not the ones in the faculty room NOT complaining about the work or students - You are the ones who give up personal space to...you guessed it...help others).
For what it's worth...I see you...I see you in the same way Jean Wolph in Louisville, Kentucky saw me...your kids are so much more than the test score. You are so much more than the way this nation treats you.
Words here are not enough...the fight is to take action for what what we know is possible in K-12 classrooms...
And with that, I'm off my morning soap box and heading back to grading, writing, planning, organizing, editing, revising, and applying.
Happy National Teacher Appreciation Week! If you're lucky, you might have an administrator like I once had - Ron Freeman - who came door to door with fresh coffee, incredible donuts, and an appreciative hug for all that we do.
If I had Dumbledore's wand, I'd be sure to conjure him up for a morning delivery to your room, too.
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