Tag: education

Posted in New Day, Pep Talk, You Are Awesome!!!

The Eye of the Teacher…er…Tiger

Posted on by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

Dear Teacher,

It is Monday.  The start of a week.  I don’t know about you, but I need to get a little psyched up for it.  We need a theme song to start us up, don’t you think.  Click play, and once the song starts, keep reading.  🙂

Teacher,  this is your week.  You’ve got this!

If you are still teaching right now, you are ready for this week.  You have your plans.  You have your ideas.  You have your heart for your students.

Don’t worry about the little things.  They are not important.  Your students are important.  You work hard for them.  They need you.  Remember why you do this!  Now, get out there and teach your heart out!

Keep your eye on the goal of changing the future through your students.  Look ahead at the potential they have.  Help them see it.  Give them the expectation and help them rise up to it.

You’ve got this!  You are ready.  Go awesome the heck out of this week!  You will change lives this week!  Go do it, Teacher!

If you are on summer break right now, you still have a battle to fight.  Some of you need to relax and take a break.  School stuff can wait.  You need to wind down from the year.  You need to disconnect, unwind, and let your mind and body heal from the year of a teacher.  School things will still be here when you are done.  Your students next year need you to do this…they don’t need a fried out teacher!

Some of you need to stop relaxing.  Don’t get into the summer lazy cycle.  Spend at least an hour a day on getting stuff prepared for next year.  Get pumped up for everything you can do next year and start planning!

It is all too easy to put things off for later.  Do a little every day.  You will thank yourself later!  You need to keep a little of that teaching mindset and don’t completely check out.  If I am calling you out, don’t feel bad…I am calling myself out here!

Next year is coming.  Your students need the best of you.  Relax, if you need to.  Stop relaxing, if you need to.  You are going to have an AWESOME year next year…so this week needs to be an AWESOME week to help that happen.  It will be an awesome week.  You will be awesome.  You are awesome!

(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use this picture if you link back to my blog.)
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use this picture if you link back to my blog.)

You have the eye of the Teacher…so live it out!  You are amazing!  You will make this week great!  You are awesome!  Keep on teaching, Teacher!

Love, Teacher

For more hope and encouragement: @DearTeacherLT (Twitter), Dear Teacher/Love Teacher Facebook Page, and the Dear Teacher TpT Store.

Posted in Challenge, Guest Post, Homework Assignment, Hope for Teachers, Reason for Teaching

Substitute Teacher Subway Station

Posted on by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use this picture if you link back to this blog.)
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use this picture if you link back to this blog.)

Dear Teacher,

As you may have noticed, the last week and a half on the blog has been guest posts by other people.  I have taken a break from school and school-related activities and others have stepped in as “Substitute Teachers.”  I am very grateful for the work they have put in to writing and promoting their posts.  They have done a great job!  Thank you, Substitute Teachers!

For reasons that I will bring up tomorrow, today is the last day of my hiatus from blogging (and teaching/planning).  I decided to make today’s post a “clip show” of the Substitute posts so that you have a chance to read and see something you may have missed while I was out.  This post is like a “subway station” of the guest posts.  I am also going to make this a quick and easy homework assignment.  Read at least three of these posts, pick your favorite, comment on it, and then share it (Facebook, Edmodo, Twitter, etc…).  I will be nice and not assign a due date.  🙂

Enjoy and share the hard work of my Substitute Teachers!

Alright, don’t forget to do your homework!  I hope you enjoy each of these as much as I have!

Teacher, you are so awesome!  You are going to do something great today, if your are still teaching or on summer break.  People with the teacher’s heart do amazing things every day…and you are one of those people.  Go out there and awesome the heck out of today!  Keep on teaching, Teacher!

Love, Teacher

For more hope and encouragement: @DearTeacherLT (Twitter), Dear Teacher/Love Teacher Facebook Page, and the Dear Teacher TpT Store.

Posted in General Inspiration, Guest Post, Pep Talk

Just Keep Moving (in the right direction)

Posted on by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

Dear Teacher,

When I asked people to volunteer to be Substitute Teachers while I am “off the grid,” I had a lot of great responses!  I am so grateful and honored by that!  Teachers were more than willing to pay forward the encouragement and hope that they have received from people and from this blog.  However, something interesting came from the request to for people to share, and it was a response to something that I have done with this blog that I did not think people noticed or cared about, but they did and do (you might, too).

I have made strides to try to keep this as anonymous as possible.  Why?  I want the message here to be separated from it being just a person trying to encourage other people.  I want it to be about teachers encouraging teachers.  We are in this together, and it is not about a person or personality.  This is one of the reasons I am using Substitute Teachers instead of just setting up a bunch of my own posts to go up while I am away.  This is teachers encouraging each other.  Teachers looking out and caring for their own!

I say all of this because some of the Substitutes have requested to stay anonymous, like me.  Their reasons are the same as mine.  I appreciate that, so I am honoring the request.  I will only share what I think is important about each…and today’s Sub has one thing I would like you to know about her.  She has been teaching for 26 years!  I am honored to have such a veteran post here!  We can learn so much from those teachers who have been doing this for a long time!  I love learning from people who have been doing this for a long time.  Read this morning and learn with me.  🙂

Dear Teacher,

I subscribe to Gretchen Rubin’s* Happiness Project blog and her “Moment of Happiness” daily e-mails.  Recently, this Oliver Wendell Holmes quote was the thought of the day:

“The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.”


This quote reminded me of some experiences I’ve had in teaching.  Often at the end of the year I can be discouraged or disappointed by all of the things that didn’t go as well as I’d have liked, or all the ways that I wasn’t as great a teacher as I’d have liked to have been for my students.  We teachers want so much to do awesome things for all of our students, but that task can sometimes be impossible to fully achieve.

Then I remind myself that no one is perfect, and that the important thing is wanting to be awesome and being committed to always getting better, becoming a stronger and more effective teacher. After my first, most difficult year as a teacher, I promised myself that I would always work to get better each year, and that as long as I kept that commitment, I would just have to be accept the fact that I hadn’t been the perfect teacher. As Holmes reminds us, it’s the direction we’re moving that is most important.

One of the best things about teaching is that every year there is a fresh start and a new chance to be even better and more awesome for a new group of students.  Summer is a great time for thinking about ways to hone our skills. What great ideas would you like to put in place with your next group of students?

You are awesome, Teacher.  You are committed to improving your professional practice, and that’s awesome!  High five!

Love, Substitute Teacher

** Gretchen Rubin is the author of The Happiness Project and Happier at Home.

For more hope and encouragement: @DearTeacherLT (Twitter) and Dear Teacher/Love Teacher Facebook Page.

Posted in Challenge, Guest Post

Teaching as a Lifestyle

Posted on by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use this image as long as you link back to this blog.)
(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!

Love, Teacher

For more hope and encouragement: @DearTeacherLT (Twitter) and Dear Teacher/Love Teacher Facebook Page.

Posted in Handwritten Note, Picture Note, Thank You!

A Personal Note to You, Teacher

Posted on by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use this picture of you link back to this blog.)
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use this picture of you link back to this blog.)

For more hope and encouragement: @DearTeacherLT (Twitter) and Dear Teacher/Love Teacher Facebook Page.

Posted in Challenge, Reflection, Teacher

Closing Time…(you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here)

Posted on by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

Image found at http://joscafe.com/2012/07/08/closing/closed-sign.

Dear Teacher,

Today is my last day of the school year.  It is a teacher work day.  It is the day that I close the door on the school year.  I can call this one done and look forward to the next.

Part of me wants to say it is bittersweet, but it isn’t.  It is just sweet.  This has been a good year.  As a matter of fact, I can honestly say it has been the best since I have started this crazy teacher ride several years ago.  I choose to look back and only see the positives.   I can not let the stumbles and falls this year get me down.  I need to learn from them and keep running!

As a matter of fact, this new positive attitude is one of the reasons that this has been such a great year.  I have learned some vital things throughout the year that I think are necessary to be a teacher for the long haul…and that is what I intend to be.  I am sure you have heard these before, but so did I.  I think they just have to sink in.  Here is another chance for you to see them…maybe they sunk in for you this year like they did for me.

The Stuff I Learned That I Should Have Known:

  • It is not a sign of weakness to choose to be positive.
  • Staying positive can be a catalyst to changing the environment among students in my classroom…they learn by watching me…and THEY ARE WATCHING!
  • Everyone needs encouragement, especially teachers, and even if I am not getting encouragement I can always give it!
  • Say thank you more often…a thank you can change someone’s day, week, year, or even life!
  • Never give up doing what is right for others, I never know how far my impact will go.
  • I need to be the hope that others do not have…my hope can spread to others that then spreads to others…and so on…and so on.
  • No matter what happens today or happened yesterday, the next day (or next minute) is a new chance to start fresh.
  • Building relationships with students and fellow teachers is non-negotiable…I can not reach students without having a relationship with them, and I can not do this alone…I need other teachers!
  • Students can and need to be challenged…and they will rise to my expectations if I let them!

I will probably think of a thousand more things once I click publish, but this is probably enough!  Today, as I go in to shut the classroom down for the summer, I need to remember a couple of things.  I need to look at the year and choose to celebrate it.  I need to see the difference I made and be proud of myself.  However, I can not get comfortable.  I can not stay in the past.  I do not quite have to move on yet…I have the summer for that…but I do need to take stock of what went well and figure out how I am going to move on and move further using the lessons that I learned.

If you are at the end of the year, I hope that you are able to pack up what you have learned and then unpack it to use it to move even further next year!  The year is over and it is closing time.  You don’t have to stop being nostalgic (and “go home”), but you can’t stay in the memories.  Use them to make you even awesomer next year!

You are awesome!  I hope your day and weekend are wonderful!  You have done a great job this year!  Keep on teaching, Teacher!

Love, Teacher

For more hope and encouragement: @DearTeacherLT (Twitter) and Dear Teacher/Love Teacher Facebook Page.

Posted in Hope for Teachers, Pep Talk, Reflection

Remembering What You Forgot

Posted on by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

(c)DearTeacherLT...You may use 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!

For more hope and encouragement: @DearTeacherLT (Twitter) and Dear Teacher/Love Teacher Facebook Page.

Posted in Reflection

Reflections and Refractions

Posted on by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

You may use this picture if you link back to this blog.
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!

Love, Teacher

For more hope and encouragement: @DearTeacherLT (Twitter) and Dear Teacher/Love Teacher Facebook Page.

Posted in Weekend Note

A Note from George Lucas: Celebrating Unsung Heroes in Education | Edutopia

Posted on by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

Dear Teacher,

For today’s post, I am just going to give a link to a note of thanks from George Lucas on his blog on his education foundation’s site, Edutopia (my new favorite website!).  It was written on Teacher Appreciation Day this year.  I liked it and thought you might.

A Note from George Lucas: Celebrating Unsung Heroes in Education | Edutopia.

I hope your weekend is as awesome as you are!  Keep on teaching, Teacher!

Love, Teacher

For more hope and encouragement: @DearTeacherLT (Twitter) and Dear Teacher/Love Teacher Facebook Page.