It started similarly for all of us. We were five or six years old, a brand new box of crayons, and 20 or so new faces among us. This was the beginning of our school years. We learned how to spell our names and add 1 +1 and began making new friends.   Through the years our skills increased and we learned to read and write and multiple and divide. But as things became more difficult at times we had to stay after for extra help. We got involved with band, chorus, theater, and sports. We did it all not really thinking about the people that made this all possible. The Teachers.

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week and specifically today is Teacher Appreciation Day. All too often these committed and dedicated people are forgotten or even at times ridiculed. These people give so much of their time to our children and most of time all we do is complain instead of praise these giving people.

What parents and the general public forget is that for many teachers their day begins prior to the first bell and are still at schools hours after the last bell either grading papers, overseeing clubs and sports, or talking to a student who just needed an ear to listen. We all too often forget these teachers on the weekends are preparing for the week, creating lessons, and grading papers. It’s the teachers who guide and help the students plan the perfect prom and schedule the eventful class trips. It’s the teachers who chaperon the dances and coach the baseball games, and yet somehow in the last several years these hardworking people have come under fire.

Everyone has an opinion on how the world of education should be run, how teacher’s lessons should be structured, what should go on in a classroom, and how every student should reach a certain score. The problem is that many people who are creating these rules and having these opinions, have never spent quality time teaching. It’s quite easy to tell people what they should and shouldn’t do, how things should or shouldn’t be, but until you actually do this job all the philosophies of teaching don’t mean that much.   It would be like taking some classes in medical school, never performing a surgery, and then suggesting to surgeon how they should perform in their job.

Whether you have a child in school right now, or maybe you yourself are in school, take the time to say thank you. It goes unnoticed quite frequently how much time and effort these people put into what they do. To all the teachers out there, thank you for everything you do. We wouldn’t be where we are today without you.