(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the image if you link back to the blog and/or give credit to Dear Teacher/Love Teacher)
Good morning, Teacher!
I have been under the weather a bit over the last week, and it caught up to me a bit this weekend and I am dragging this morning. I just couldn’t find a song for the weekly theme song! I knew what I was looking for, but I just couldn’t find it. I am really sorry! I will try again this afternoon because I am out of time this morning.
I thought I would share this graphic/poster with you in the meantime. As teachers, sometimes it is our job to be the light to students. We need to show them the way to learn, think, and do this all on the own. This can be hard because we are fighting their want to have things thought out for them and handed to them. It can be a grueling job and quite tiring! It can be a constant battle with some students and then a constant river of encouragement for others….and then everything else in between for the rest. It is mentally exhausting to do all of this and to constantly be aware of what students need.
This there is the flip-side. Sometimes we are not the light to students. Sometimes we are the shade. We do not always know what our students’ lives are like outside of our classrooms. We do not know their struggles, hurts, and trials of everyday existence. There is scorching heat that comes from life…like the noonday sun in the desert. It is hard to keep going sometimes. We all need a “shady place” when life is hard…especially our students. Sometimes it is our job to be this shade. What this looks like is different from person to person and student to student, but it is a real need. We need to recognize when to be this shade and find a way to be it.
It is a difficult part of being a teacher to know what what our students need and to try to play the role that fills a need…but it is a part of who we are. Let’s look for times today when we need to be light and when we need to be shade…and then let’s be what our students need!
You are awesome and amazing, as always. I know you know when to be light and when to be shade. I know you have the strength to be both. Do it well today. Cast light and give cover. You can do it. You are making a huge difference. Never forget it! Keep on teaching, Teacher!
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the image if you link back to the blog and/or give credit to Dear Teacher/Love Teacher)
Dear Teacher.
Something tells me that you need this message as much as I do. Have a great weekend! Get some rest and take a break…you deserve it! You do amazing work!
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the image if you link back to the blog and/or give credit to Dear Teacher/Love Teacher)
Dear Teacher,
How about a Teacher Truth for your Tuesday? Here is a little reminder about who you are and what you do as a teacher. You are amazing! You are awesome! You are making a difference and you are changing the future! Keep on teaching, Teacher! Don’t forget to be brave, too!
Good morning! Ready or not, a new week is here. Whether you are at the beginning, middle, or end of a school year, Mondays can be rough. They are especially difficult if you are feeling the grind of the work that we do. This is why I do my Monday posts. This is why I give you a theme song for the day and week. Sometimes I have a good idea for the song I want to use and words to write to go with it, sometimes it just comes together when I go looking for a song.
This morning I had a song and words in mind, but then when the search for the song began something else happened. I found a song I have never heard that is amazing…and the message from the song is timely and needed by me, so I figure other people are in the same boat. I hope so, it is always weird when the message is just for me! Anywho, for those who know the deal, click play and read on. If you are new to Dear Teacher/Love Teacher, click play, get past the ads, and then read on.
If you have time, watch the video again after reading. It is a pretty inspirational video, at least it was for me!
Teacher, you stand out in a crowd. Not because you want to, it is more because you have to. You stand in front of a group of students every day. You are in the spotlight. You lead a group of people that need you to make choices that affect their future. It is quite overwhelming, if you think about it, but you take it in stride. It is what you are made for…it is what you do and want to do.
Embracing your role, though, doesn’t make it any easier. And it is coupled with many other aspects of your job where you have to make choices that put a bulls-eye on you. You have to fight curriculum battles. You have to work on classroom management. You have to answer to parents. You have to answer to students. You have to answer to administration. You have to answer to your department. You have to answer to your team. You have to answer to your district. You have to…well, I think you get the point. You know this. You are front and center for everything that you do and say in your classroom and beyond.
You have a lot of hats. You play a lot of roles. You do so many things, yet you have the heat of eyes staring at you constantly as you try to make the right decisions day after day after day. You are, like the video, dancing in a crowd of people who are all trying to figure out what you are doing and why.
Sometimes, with all of that, there is pressure to put on a show. There is the temptation to just do what is expected and never be outside of the box. Even when you know that your students need more, the cop-out path of just following the status quo is always in front of you. It is a way out. It is an escape. If you take that route, you can just blame the system if things do not pan out. “I was just following orders” is so much easier to say than “I took a risk, it did not work out, and I am sorry.”
Teacher, I know you. You know what is best for your students. You know what they need and how to push and challenge them to bigger and greater things. You know the risks, but you also see the rewards. You know when to step out. You know when to speak up. You know when to take a stand. You know all of these things…all you need to do is be brave and do them.
I want to see you be brave. I want you to speak the truth. I want you to make the choices that make your students better students and better people. I want you to take the risks you need to take and reap the rewards that come from them. I want to see you be brave.
Rest assured that the system usually comes around to the brave ones. There were many teachers using technology before it was the expectation. They had to defend their choices constantly, and now look at the world of education–the things that once seemed strange is the norm.
There were many “common core” teachers before Common Core was even a thing. They had to defend and stand up for the way that they were teaching. Science teachers had to defend the amount of reading and writing that they pushed. English teachers had to give an account for why they thought informational texts were as important, or even more important than novels. They fought and held their ground, and look at what the world looks like now.
Teacher, keep doing what you know is right. Keep what is best for your students in sight. Don’t be afraid to be brave. Be brave today. Be brave this week. Be brave this year. I just wanna see you be brave!
You are awesome. You are amazing. You are brave. Be these things today! Keep on teaching, Teacher!
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the image if you link back to the blog and/or give credit to Dear Teacher/Love Teacher)
Dear Teacher,
Here is just a little reminder of why what you work so hard to do is far more than worth it. You are amazing and awesome, no matter what your day felt like! Keep going! Keep pushing! Keep proving your awesome everyday! You are making a difference, I promise. Keep on teaching, you Magnificent Teacher, you!
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the image if you link back to the blog and/or give credit to Dear Teacher/Love Teacher)
Dear Teacher,
You are a lot of things, and you play a lot of roles. But most of all, you are AWESOME! You are changing lives! You are amazing! Keep on teaching, Teacher!
I do not know how you feel right now, but I feel like I have been in a fight. Not a fist fight, but a battle. The beginning of this school year has been a little rough. My students have been great! I am not talking about them. It has just been tough to get things going.
I have written a lot about the changes that I am striving to make this year. It is not easy to dramatically change how you do what you have been doing for a long time. This is my eighth year of teaching, so I am trying to break a lot of old habits and undo a lot of the “old ways” that I have taught. When the going gets hectic and the clearness of my schedule gets muddied, I want to fall back into what is comfortable.
Yesterday was most definitely one of those days. I had to constantly remind myself why the changes are important. I had to keep telling myself why I needed to keep going on the road that I am on. I had to look at myself and tell me that I can not give up and I can’t surrender.
It was hard. I was left feeling beat up by the battle by the end of the day. So now, at the beginning of a new day, as I sat and thought about what I might want to write for a post, I wondered what I needed to hear myself. What I came up with is that I need some motivation. Something to pump me up. So I went on a search.
I found a pretty motivating (and a little funny from the way it was set up) set of movie speeches to get me fired up and ready for the day. Have a watch and listen with me.
I love the way that was put together! Are you more ready for the day now (or tomorrow if you are seeing this at the end of the school day)? I know I am!
As I was looking for this, I found another video that was shown at a training I recently went to. This video helped me this morning, as well. It is a look at the recent past and the exponential changes we have seen in present and full of predictions for the continued changes into the future. It is a reminder that we are teaching students for who the future is unknown. There is a statistic that keeps changing (in the upward direction) of the percentage of jobs that will be available to our students when they are adults that do not exist at the moment. This is in the video. This statistic never ceases to astound me. It is eye-opening to think that our students are going to enter a world that does not exist yet, and this world is unfathomable to us at the moment. We HAVE to be on our game. We have to fight!
I probably ought to share the video. 🙂 Even if you have seen it before, it is worth another watch.
After this, I don’t have a lot to say. I need to let all of this sink in for you and let it motivate you for your “fight” today. I do want to close with a quote that goes along with the video and what this information means for us as teachers. It is from Eric Hoffer, a 20th Century American philosopher. What is amazing about this quote is that he past away in 1983…a little before the impending technology boom that has caused much of the exponential changes that we are seeing.
In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
Teacher, I hope you have a great day. I hope you have a great end to the week. I hope next week brings some of the awesome that you are working towards with your student. You are awesome and amazing! You are fighting the good fight. Keep fighting and keep on teaching!
Love, Teacher
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the image if you link back to the blog and/or give credit to Dear Teacher/Love Teacher)
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the image if you link back to the blog and/or give credit to Dear Teacher/Love Teacher)
Dear Teacher,
Okay, I know that you may or may not be starting the new school year when you read this. However, there is a good chance that you are, because most of the readers of this blog are from the US. If you are not starting the new school year, you may still find some motivation here in this post, so read on. I hope it will be worth your time!
This is a theme song post; you know the procedures by now, I hope! Click play and then start reading when the music starts!
This is it, Teacher. A new school year is upon you. Are you ready? Are you nervous? Are you anxious? Are you excited? Or are you, like me, a jumble and mix of all three and then some?
What are your plans for the year? I don’t mean unit and lesson plans. I mean what are your plans in the terms of what you want the school year to look like? Do you have those kind of plans? Do you have goals, hopes, and dreams for what the school year could be like? I don’t mean the kind of hopes and dreams that you think, “That would be nice but it won’t happen.” I mean the kind of hopes and dreams that you believe in so much that it gets you up in the morning and you will wear yourself out to make happen?
A lot of us had those kind of plans when we first started teaching. Unfortunately, the longer you teach the more that kind of thinking fades. Lofty and slightly unrealistic goals get beat out of you by the realities of teaching. It does happen slowly, thank goodness, but our hopes erode over the years.
Drip by drip, the stress and pressure of teaching starts to wear on you. It breaks down the hope. It washes some of the dreaming away. It dims the light that used to shine so bright.
Sometimes this gets to the point that the school year happens to you. You get stuck in a form of “survival mode” that you stay in just to make it through. You love and do your best with your students, but the spark is faded or gone. You go along with the waves and currents of the year because you have so little fight left. It is a normal part of teaching for so many of us. Don’t feel bad if you have been there or are there. There is hope!
What is that hope, Mr. Dear Teacher/Love Teacher?
The hope is that IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE THAT WAY!
Most of this is going to be a mental exercise, so I know that you may or may not see this as a little bit of “pie in the sky hooey,” but you just have to change your thinking! You have to believe that this year is going to be different. This year will be the change and you will never be the same teacher again! You have to stand firm and resolute. You have have to stand tall, look this new school year in the eye, and be determined that you are going to happen to the year and the year is not just going to happen to you!
Your attitude has to change.
Remember way back to when you first started out. Remember those wild-eyed dreams that you had. Remember the teacher that you were determined to be. Remember how you were going to take the world by storm and change the lives of your students for the better.
Have that image and those thoughts in your head, and then look in the mirror and tell yourself that it is not too late. You know why? It is because, no matter how long that you have been teaching, IT IS NOT TOO LATE! You can still be that teacher! You can still meet those goals!
The best part is that the longer you have been teaching, the more know-how and experience you have to make those things happen and be that teacher you wanted to be. You just have to purpose yourself to do so! And you can! You can because you are awesome!
The past does not matter. No matter the teacher you have been, you can still be the teacher you always wanted to be! Find a way to do it. Hang out with those teachers that are closest to what you dreamed of being. Learn from them. Read, read, read! There are so many sources for strategies and ideas! I will post some of those sources soon. Get to know your students. Find out what they think they need from you as a teacher. Try to become the teacher that they need!
Teacher, YOU CAN DO THIS!
It is your teaching life. It is your year. It is now or never. Teach like your alive! You are alive! You can be the great teacher you wanted to be or that people think you are and you don’t believe them. It is never too late!
BE AWESOME! MAKE THIS YEAR AWESOME! DO WHAT EVER IT TAKES! YOU CAN BECAUSE YOU ARE AMAZING! KEEP ON TEACHING, TEACHER!
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the picture if you link back to this blog and/or give credit to Dear Teacher/Love Teacher.)
Dear Teacher,
I am not sure where you are in your summer break or school year, but for me it is the last day of summer. Tomorrow is the first day back for teachers. The countdown is on! Summer is over and it is time to start remember what day it is again (stole that one from a post I saw on Facebook).
Weekly theme song time, so click play and keep reading. This is a silly version of the song, but it still works!
This is it. You have rested. You have planned…maybe. You have had some summer PD.
Last year is officially “in the bag,” and the new one is about to begin. Are you ready? Your students are almost to your classroom door. They are waiting for you. Are you waiting for them?
Teacher, this year could be the best year ever. Make it the best year ever! No matter what has happened in the past, this year can and will be different. Make it that way. You can. You are awesome. You can do it! You just have to be brave enough to do whatever it takes to make that happen…and you can!
So, what do you need to do with the minutes ticking off of the clock?
Get your mind ready. Take a look in the mirror. No finger pointing at anyone besides yourself, what do you need to change about you? What things can you do different with your students? How can you build relationships better? How can you deal with stress better? How can you plan more efficiently? How can you communicate with parents better? How can you change in how you interact with fellow teachers and administration?
Get your heart ready. Take a look in that mirror and only point at yourself again, what do you need to fix? What fences do you need to mend? What bridges need fires put out? Who do you need to forgive and/or as forgiveness from at your school? You need to work with who you work with for the sake of the students. You need to make it work. What do you need to do to make things work? Do you need to forgive yourself? Do you need to move on from the past and just let some things go? Do it. It will be worth it to have the best year ever!
Get your spirit ready. Take one more look in that mirror with your fingers ready to point, what do you need to be excited for the coming year? Do you need to just let go of curricular hang-ups? Do you need to forget your worries about expectations from others? Do you need to erase your bad experiences with students from years past and just assume this year will be better? It will be better. Get excited! You have the best job ever! You are about to have students that you have never taught before! They don’t know your past! You get to start over! Start over! Find something to be excited about and BE EXCITED!
This is the final countdown to the best year ever! Get excited! Expect the best! Let go of the past and just find ways to make this the year of your teaching dreams! It can be, no matter your circumstances. Make it that way!
You are awesome! I wish you the most awesome-est year you have ever had! Make this year as awesome as you are! Keep dreaming and keep on teaching, Teacher!
Today’s post is the best of the guest blog posts by “Substitute Teachers.” I was away for almost two weeks, and I asked a few people to post in my stead. They did a wonderful job and there were amazing posts while I was gone! I enjoyed reading and applying what they wrote!
I am going to use today’s post as a little plug. I am looking for help in two areas. I would love to have a collection of “Substitute Teacher Posts” to use when I am unable to write and to possibly to a weekly guest post. I am looking for people who might like to write some words of encouragement, hope, and/or challenges. Some teacher testimonies, stories from the trenches of teaching where encouragement and hop made a difference, would be awesome, as well. You don’t need to be a blogger, you just have to have something to say! Email if you are interested: dearteacher@outlook.com.
The second plug is another requests for stories or words of encouragement, but this is stories about teachers that you have had in the past that made a difference. I want to collect thank you letters to former teachers and/or stories about how what they did and how they taught made a difference in your life. I think we could learn so much from reading stories and letters like this! I want to post these stories from time to time, and if I get enough I would love to think about putting a book together. Would you like to be a part of this? Please? 🙂 Use the same email to let me know your interest, or just send me your letter or story. I am going to start by posting my letter soon!
Okay, now for the posts. Read a few and share the one you liked the most!
Teaching as a Lifestyle – How great teachers go the extra mile because teaching is more than a job.
Why (Did I Become a Teacher)? – This was the most popular post while I was out (it was shared as many times as my most popular posts) and it is about remembering why you became a teacher in the first place. Great post!
The Imagination Box – Why creativity might be the most important and vital tool of teachers.
A Teacher “Prayer” – A quote and thoughts that remind us about the blessings and challenges of being a teacher.
The Take Care of You Challenge – A challenge for taking care of yourself during the summer and breaks so that you can be a better teacher for your students.
Which one is your favorite? Why? Since you liked it, share the link with others and spread the encouragement! 🙂
You are awesome! No matter what the week has been like, today will be great. Make it great. Keep moving and keep teaching, Teacher!
Love, Teacher
PS…I am going to officially stop sharing the link in the Edmodo communities (I am only going to share in the Dear Teacher/Love Teacher group there from now on). It is never more important than now for you to share Dear Teacher/Love Teacher with others. Share where ever you can and spread the encouragement revolution! By the way, you can share in the communities, I am just not going to.
Dear Teacher/Love Teacher 