As we approach the start of Teacher Appreciation Week, celebrated the first full week of May, I was getting ready to pen my article for this month. However, as often happens, social media somehow “reads my mind” and puts something in front of me that often captures what I am thinking. So, today I share with you a post from author/blogger Rebecca Cooper titled “Pray for the teachers.”
“We’re in the middle of a post-holiday week, and it’s almost May, and I need you to remember that teachers are people.
Teachers have moms and dads and babies and friends and significant others and feelings and burdens.
Teachers get to school early, and leave late, and worry. They text each other on Sundays, grade on Saturdays, and spend too much of their own money on classrooms that are second homes. Rugs and lamps. Juice boxes and snacks. Framed pictures and extra chargers.
Teachers wonder about your kids, build relationships with your kids, and remember them years later. Teachers worry about them, and are thankful for them even years later. Possession changes—they are your kids, but they are their kids, too.
Teachers inspire, protect, defend, and advocate for your kids. Every single day.
Ceaselessly. Doggedly. Unashamedly. Teachers root for the underdogs and cheer for the successes and even when their hands are tired of clapping—they just don’t stop.
They are exhausted. It’s spring, and your kids are tired, and you’re tired, and teachers are trying to make up the difference. And that difference sometimes looks like bigger gestures, later nights planning new, inventive lessons, more excitement, more, more, more.
. . . They somehow always find a way to do more with less.
The final bell rings, they sit at their desks, and they take a deep breath. And they’ll do it all again the next day, and the next. Because teachers are rooted in love.
It’s a marathon. It’s not a sprint. And they signed up for the long haul. And your kids are worth it.
So today, when you’re dropping off your kids—say an extra prayer of thanks for the teachers. Chances are your kid’s teacher is offering one up, too—one full of joy and gratitude—just for your baby.
And the way I see it, the world could use more of that right now.”
Please join me in celebrating our fabulous staff at Sacred Heart not just during Teacher Appreciation Week, but each and every day. From someone who is “in the trenches” with them, we are truly blessed.
