Anonymity is popular among my Substitute Teachers. Today’s post is from another veteran teacher, to whom I tip my hat. You teachers who have kept at this for decades, I salute you! I hope to be one of those “decades” teachers one day!
This message is short, sweet, and perfect for a Monday. Please enjoy and apply! Have a great week!
Dear Teacher,
I came across this “prayer” many years ago. I’m not sure who the author is.
Enable me to teach with
WISDOM
for I help to shape the mind.
Equip me to teach with
TRUTH
for I help to shape the conscience.
Encourage me to teach with
VISION
for I help to shape the future.
Empower me to teach with
LOVE
for I help to shape the world.
Whatever your beliefs, Teacher, I think it’s a great reminder to us. May we all teach with wisdom, truth, vision, and love. The stakes are high! And not just for testing and standards. Our words and actions help to shape our students’ minds and consciences. We help to shape the future and the world! What an awesome job that is, Teacher! It’s awesome in the many meanings of the word “awesome”! It inspires awe to think of our responsibilities and potential. But it’s also awesome and great thatwe (yes, us, Teacher!) have been given this opportunity. How amazing is that?
Today is another anonymous Substitute Teacher. This teacher has been teaching for a long time, as well, so I think think the words are worth listening to! Experience and time are great teachers, especially for teachers! This is a short, but powerful little message that is good for every day of the week…though, I think it is great on a Friday! Please read and take heart, and then have an awesome weekend, Teacher!
Dear Teacher,
I love to collect quotations. They help to motivate and inspire me. I like to share them with my students too, in the hope that my students will also be motivated and inspired by them. Here’s one I like. I find it especially comforting after a rough spot in my teaching.
Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” — Mary Ann Radmacher
It’s important to remember that teaching is more like a marathon than a sprint. We’re in this for the long haul. It’s what our students need from us –someone who will keep coming back, day after day, trying again and again until we find the strategies that work with each new class or student, wearing down those students who may try to test us, and modeling for our students that it’s important to be committed to things that are important (as they are!).
You are awesome, Teacher! Thank you for all the great things you are doing!
The Substitute Teacher for today has also requested to stay anonymous. This post is great. It is a challenge. It is encouragement. It is a reminder to think outside a “box”…well, actually to think inside a “box”…okay, maybe you should just read it and see what I mean. 🙂
Read, enjoy, and apply it to your teaching vigorously! Thank you for sharing this with us, Substitute Teacher!
Dear Teacher,
Today you are being given a very special item. It may not look like much, but trust me, it’s value is truly priceless.
This unique gift is for recollecting your creativity. Over time and frequent use your creativity box has been searched through, dug around in, and dumped all over everywhere.
It has been a well loved go to, or maybe a forgotten asset, but it is time to haul it out again. Take advantage of the gift of your creativity. Find things to put in your box that will inspire you, motivate you and make you laugh. A teacher’s creativity is a vital tool. It is what makes your lessons stand out, your activities fun and your students interact willingly.
Stock your box with all the things you love and cherish the most. Spend some time investing in your creativity every chance you get. Your creativity is part of what makes you the amazingly awesome teacher you are!
Go on now, start hunting!
(c)DearTeacherLT (You may use this picture if you link back to this blog.)
The box specially designed to expand exponentially with your imagination,
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use this image as long as you link back to this blog.)
Dear Teacher,
This is the first in a series of posts by substitute “Love, Teachers”. As you have probably read, I am taking a short hiatus from the blog (as well as anything else school-related). I feel that this is important. Despite popular thought, teachers do not stop for the summer. Often times we work harder during the summer than during the school year. We plan. We go to trainings. We go to workshops. We teach summer school. We tutor. We do any number of things to help students and prepare for the next year. For this reason, I think it is important to force yourself to take a break. That is exactly what I am doing.
That said, let me introduce my new friend, Dubier. Dubier is a Spanish teacher at an international school in Sweden. Yes, with this post, my blog is officially international! Dubier has a blog called I teach with IT. The blog shares his experiences as a teacher that promotes flip teaching, the use of IT and motivation to improve the education for students. Please check it out. I asked him to guest-post because his blog is both encouraging and challenging.
I think this is a great and motivational message, and I hope you agree! Without further ado, let me hand it over to Dubier.
To be a teacher is a lifestyle.
What does it means to be a teacher? Are teachers only a person who goes to work Monday to Tuesday, planning their lessons, teach and goes home afterwards? If I would ask many teachers, they would answer YES to that question. Understand me right, it is their full right to think so but I am of another opinion. I would like to say that to be a teacher are not a role or job for me, to be teacher is a lifestyle. Lifestyle starts from the moment you wake up until you fall asleep. Your lifestyle is not dependent on a location or time schedule, but it continues as long as you are awake.
Many teachers complaints are about the salary, time schedule and that they need to do some extra work for students. Think about teaching as a lifestyle and maybe you would think differently. A lifestyle is something that you choose, to feel good about yourself, and not something you choose to get something in return. The greatest feeling is when you helped students to achieve something that they didn’t think they could just because you as a teacher didn’t just think about your schedule or salary but the student´s best. That is worth all the money or time in the world. don´t you think?
Many teachers could feel very stressed when parents call after working hours. To be honest I am one of them. However we need think about it in another perspective. They are calling us because they think that we are the only one that could help them. They trust us with their children. They are calling us after their working hours when they are tired. They even call sometimes during weekends when they rather doing something fun. What does that cost us? nothing. 5 minutes of our life…..that maybe could help the parents have a great weekend before they start over again on monday. Do we get paid for that? Yes, in satisfaction
To be a teacher is not only about the students and parents. It’s also about your colleagues. In my opinion your responsibility as a teacher is also to be available for your colleagues when they need support and help. Not just during working hours but also outside.
This are few things that is included in my lifestyle. what is included in yours?
Thank you so much, Dubier, for your encouragement and challenge! You are awesome! You are awesome, too, Teacher, as always! Keep on teaching, Teacher Dubier and every teacher everywhere!
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use this picture if you link back to this blog.)
Dear Teacher,
You never really know your impact on others. Sometimes you get to see some of how what you do effects people, but you will never really get to know all of the effects of how what you do changes and and impacts other people. Everything that you do for other people is like dropping a rock in a pond. The effect is immediate at the point where you drop it, but that energy is sent out as ripples and waves throughout the rest of the pond (or at least much further out than the area where the rock went).
This can be viewed in a positive or negative light, but you know I am going to talk about the positive!
Yesterday, I had the honor of seeing the immediate reaction of a note of encouragement to a colleague. It was awesome. Without knowing it, what was said were words that were needed at a timely moment for someone. I got a thank you, a hug, and was told the effects that my words had (and we seldom get to have that). This was quite awesome for me to be able to see the “drop in the pond.”
However, I will never get to see the effects of that splash. The encouragement and “energy” was passed from me to another teacher, but what happened afterwards? Was there a chain reaction that went from the teacher to students and other teachers? Was the energy then moved from them to others? And then to other people…then others…and others…and…well, you get the point.
We just do not know our true impact! This is one of the reasons our job can be draining. We know the potential for all of the little and big things that we do, but we do not always get to see how that potential plays out. We do not get a results report that shows all of our effects on the lives of students and other teachers. I tell you, though, your effects are big, Teacher! You are making an impact, and it stretches far down the line!
I am so talking to myself right now. I am facing the last day with students for the year. It is hard. I do not know all of the good that I have past on down to my students. I will miss them, but more than that I wish I knew if all my hard work will pay off in their lives. I can say that I know it was all worth it. The ripples will be felt, even if not by me.
For instance, I do not know if you are getting tired of me saying this or not, but you are awesome! You are believed in! You are affecting me and others in ways you just do not and will not know. Keep on teaching, Teacher!
Love, Teacher
PS…Sorry for all of the links today, I am trying out something new…a way to weave in older messages that newer readers may have missed. Hey, maybe you needed some reminders of things said here before, anyway. I know I do! 🙂
Your students love you and know that you care. They think you are awesome, but sometimes they just don’t have the words or know-how to let you know. So, because of that, I wrote the note that they feel about you but may never write. They notice all that you do. One day they will look back and see you as one of the main influences in their lives. You may never get this card, but it is very true! Please read and let it be from the students you have struggled with the most to reach, connect, and help them reach some of their potential. Let this be their words to you.
You are awesome! Keep on teaching, Teacher!
Love, Teacher
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use this picture if you link back to this blog.)(c)DearTeacherLT (You may use this picture if you link back to this blog.)
(c)DearTeacherLT…You may use if you link back to this blog.
Dear Teacher,
When I was a kid, I loved the idea of amusement parks and carnivals. There was something so exciting and a bit surreal about them. The colors, the sounds, the smells…it was like another world. They made me feel alive, and the energy a trip to one brought would last for a long time…until normal life pushed the memories away and everything was back to the same-old, same-old.
What is amazing is that even now, as an adult, even just seeing an amusement park or carnival brings back some of that same exhilaration. Not exactly the same energy as experiencing it as a child or actually being there, but the memories come rushing back and there is a little surge of that excitement that wells up. I know that someone could probably explain the brain processes that cause this, but I prefer to just enjoy the rush of memories! It makes me feel like a kid again, especially if it is with one of my kids.
I am, and a lot of you are, in the throws of finishing up the school year or have just finished. We are tired, beat-up, over-whelmed, stressed, sad, and focused on getting everything done. This is draining. Though we love our students, we get lost in the details and sometimes are just looking at the light at the end of the tunnel and forgetting the reason we are doing this in the first place.
Okay, well I don’t know if you feel that way, but yesterday was like that for me. The thrill and joy of teaching the students this year was replaced by the stress of the monotony of crossing every “t” and dotting every “i” at the end of the year. I was worn out by evening and pre-stressing over the details of the next day. When I woke up this morning, I realized I was missing something…my students.
I was forgetting that they are why I am looking for “t’s” and “i’s” to cross and dot! They are facing the end of the school year. They are excited. They are sad. They are nervous. They are ecstatic. They are a ball of emotions and they need their teacher there to understand and go through these emotions with them! I need to remember them. They are my reason for teaching. I need to find a way to push through the stress and be the teacher they need me to be.
Like seeing, hearing, or smelling carnival colors, sounds, and smells take me back to that excitement, I need to find reminders of the thrills of teaching my students this year. I need to look at them and see the awesomeness that they are and tell them. I need to talk, laugh, and cry with them. I have only a couple of days left. I need to enjoy this time with them, even through the stress!
Are you in the same place with this? Did you just experience this? How are you do you deal with the closing of the year but still trying to focus on your students? Please share, for the good of the group! 🙂
Teacher, I know you make the right choices. You put your students first. You push through the monotony and find a way to love on your kids and let them know you care. You are awesome! Keep teaching, Teacher!
Love, Teacher
PS…I will be taking a two week sabbatical from the blog. If you would be interesting in guest-posting (for my blogging friends) or just writing a message to pass on encouragement and hope while I am out, please let me know your interest and/or pitch me your idea via email: dearteacher@outlook.com. Thanks! I could use the help and teachers need your encouragement!
You may use this picture if you link back to this blog.
Dear Teacher,
I know that some of you are done with school for this school year, some are drawing this year to an end, and my Southern Hemisphere friends are just beginning. I am in that middle group. Today I start the last week of the school year, so you will have to forgive me if I seem a little nostalgic this morning!
As I was thinking back on the year and the start of this last week of it, I see a lot of growth and change. Growth and change in my student, which I hope is always a given, but also growth and change in me. I think this year has marked my greatest leaps as a teacher, and I have been doing this a little while. I do not know why this year was my “jump forward” year, but I do believe it has been. I feel like a veteran teacher now, and it is more than the number beside years teaching. I feel like I understand more about what it takes to connect to and reach students, but also to connect to and reach my fellow teachers. I realize how important that is now.
While I pondered on all of this, the idea of the behaviors of light came to mind. The word reflection spurred this jump between trains of thought. Reflection, as you probably know, is the bouncing of light waves off of the surface of an object. That is similar to when we reflect on the year as a teacher, we are letting our experiences “bounce” off the surface of the school year and come back to us to think about. We let the “energy” of the year come back to us, good or bad.
This led me to thinking about looking back in another way, through another behavior of light: refraction. Refraction is the bending of light as it passes from one medium/material to another. Refraction is why lenses make things look bigger or smaller. Refraction is what makes images larger or smaller. Either way, after refraction, an image is not the same. Maybe this is a better way to think about end-of-year reflections as a teacher, they are really more of a refraction than a reflection.
When you look back, what you remember is either magnified or diminished. We see the failures as bigger than they should be, though sometimes they look smaller than they should to us. We sometimes shrink the successes in light of the “bad stuff,” sometimes they hide the fall-backs from us altogether. Any way you slice it, or memories are not quite a true reflection. They are not the original image.
This can be a good or bad thing. It is bad if we are not honest and letting our experience over the last year be what it really was. We need an honest look at where we triumphed and where we were defeated. We need to look closely at what we did well and what we did not do well. We need to build on the success and find the trail that led to the not-so-successful parts of the year so we can avoid that path from now on. We need to learn what we can from an honest look at ourselves and move on to bigger and better things!
Refraction of the year CAN be a good thing, though. We do need to pump up and celebrate what went well. We need to find achievement somewhere in each student and magnify. We need to tell them and let them see it, even if it is microscopic. We need to see it for ourselves, even if it is distant and you need a telescope. We need to know where we made a difference so that we can gain excitement from that and make bigger strides next year!
Where are you in this? Are you reflecting or refracting? Don’t forget to do both!
You are SO awesome, Teacher! I know that you will look back at this year so that you can make next year even better! Keeping on teaching, Teacher!
Dear Teacher/Love Teacher 