(c)DearTeacherLT (You may use the image if you link back to this blog.)
Dear Teacher,
You are a superhero with many superpowers. You have super vision to see things that other people don’t see, and you have the power of Differentiation Control. You know you students. You know what each student needs, and you strive to give them every opportunity and condition they need to learn and grow. You are the master of your content and you make sure every student is ableto learn based on their needs. You use your superpower with skill and grace, Super Teacher.
I have decided to make Monday morning posts about motivation and getting you psyched up for the week. As you saw last Monday, I think music and theme songs a great way to do this. Today I am going to mix that with another thing that jacks me up and gets me motivated to do great things…superhero movies! I may be showing a little bit of my inner-geek with this, but I can’t help it. Superhero movies make me want to go out and do awesome things! This is a theme song that you might want to watch after you get done reading…but go ahead and have it playing while you read the rest of the post. 🙂
Teacher, you are a superhero with superpowers. You see things other people don’t see. You can think in ways other people don’t think. You do feats of planning and preparation that other people could not keep up with. You grade with heart…looking for more than what was and wasn’t correct, you look for what needs to be worked on and honed in each student. You do great and amazing things…even if other people do not always see you do them.
Your students need a hero! They need someone to fight for them. They need someone to take a stand for them. They need someone who will not settle for mediocrity in them. They need someone to see the potential in them and help them live up to that potential! They need you, Super Teacher.
Be that hero for your students…
Plan like you mean it and know you are doing something that needs to be done for your students. This goes double for teachers on summer break…PLAN! You are giving yourself weapons to fight with for next year. You are honing your superpowers! Plan like you are a hero in training!
Love on your students. Get to know them. When you know them, you are so much more invested in the fights you need to fight for them! Summer teachers, plan for getting to know your kids and investing in their lives…the time planning for this will pay off in big dividends when you are more invested in each student.
Use your gifts and talents. Do what you do well, and keep on doing it. Play to your strengths and plan for ways to do so.
FIGHT!! Fight for your students. Fight for what is right. Do what you know is right. Fight for what you need to help your students succeed.
Never give up! When the fight is tough and the going is rough, DO NOT GIVE UP! Be the hero and keep fighting. It will pay off!
You are a hero and you are awesome! You do amazing things…keep doing them. Fight hard to be the hero your students need. Keep on teaching, Teacher!
Love, Teacher
Don’t forget to check out the giveaway contest on the Facebook Page. It is over at midnight on Friday, July 5th, 2013.
As I promised, I am kicking off a series of posts that I will write over the weekends called The Secret Occupations of Teachers, or S.O.o.T. for short. I am going to talk about some of the “extra” things that teachers do or compare some of what we do to other occupations. The goal of this series is to give you some comfort in knowing other people understand what you do (along with some encouragement and challenges in some of your roles) and to let other people in on the parts of a life of a teacher that they may not know about. I am excited about these posts, and I hope you will be to!
Today’s S.O.o.T. is gardener/landscaper. These jobs deal with the care and upkeep of plants, for the most part. When you think of gardeners, you think of gardens, flowers, and vegetables. When you think of landscapers, you think of mowing, weeding, planting, and taking care of yards and landscapes. Gardeners/landscapers understand plants. They know what grows when and the circumstances needed for ideal growth…and they know how to create those circumstances. They know weeds. They know how to identify them and get rid of them. They know plants, understand them, and use what they know and understand to grow beautiful and wonderful things.
Acknowlegement
Teacher, you are a landscaper and a gardener. You don’t deal in plants, you deal in people. The soil that you work with is the minds and hearts of your students. You have to know this soil. You have to understand the circumstances in which you are tying to grow. You get to know you students. Learn who they are and how they think. With this you identify weeds that need to be worked on and pulled out. Sometimes this is easy, but more often it is quite hard. Once the ground is ready, you plant seeds of knowledge and learning.
The seeds grow differently in each student, and you know that the circumstances needed for growth change from student to student. You know that you cannot force the seeds to grow, so you make sure that you enable the soil in each student to have everything that is needs to allow growth. You nurture. You feed and water the seeds. When weeds of misunderstanding grow, you address them quickly with which ever means are necessary. You do all that you can to ensure growth of the seeds, and then you do the only thing you can do…wait.
You wait and see what grows from the soil. You are patient. You are understanding. You change things as needed when the fruit of understanding looks weak with a student. You do all that you can to make sure that you have done all that you can to see understanding bloom and take shape. And when it is all said and done, you stand back and enjoy the beauty of understanding students that has grown from your hard work.
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the picture if you link back to this blog.)
Encouragement
Teacher, I know that this role of landscaper/gardener is hard. You have to be vigilant. You can’t just mow the lawn once or pull up the weeds of misunderstanding a couple of times and be done. No, you have to keep at it. Day after day with each and every student, and you do without complaint. But it is hard.
Don’t give up. I know when you pull up that same weed from one student the 1001st time you do not want to do it again, but keep doing it. Something beautiful WILL grow. Just keep going. Keep at it. You know it is worth it in the end. Focus on what you want to see grow and then do what it takes to make that happen.
You are an amazing gardener. You are a wonderful landscaper. Keep at it! You can do it! You are awesome!
Challenge
Remember this analogy as you plug away with your students. When the going gets rough and they just don’t seem to be getting it, remember that you are a landscaper/gardener and that if you keep working at it something wonderfully beautiful will grow. When school starts (or right now, if you are teaching), find the most difficult students, and see them as a garden. Find somewhere to write down three things that you want to see grown in them by the end of the year. Work hard at seeing those things grow. Pick three students and three things to grow in them for each. Do what it takes to see the growth. Keep notes on the growth you see. At the end of the year, celebrate the beauty you have watched blossom!
You are an awesome landscaper/gardener, and don’t ever forget that! I hope this has spoken to you and given you some hope. I know it has done that for me just writing this. I am going to take the challenge myself next year. I hope that you do the same!
You are awesome! You are believed it! And you are supported! Keep on teaching, Teacher!
Love, Teacher
PS…
Don’t forget to check out the Facebook Page tonight (Sunday) for the giveaway/contest. The contest closes at midnight on Friday, July 5th!
Great Saturday morning to you! I hope you are relaxing off your week and getting ready for another one! I just wanted to announce a few things this morning. I think you really like one of the announcements!
Later today or tomorrow I will be starting a series of posts that I will put up on the weekends. The Secret Occupations of Teachers, or S.O.o.T. for short. I will be talking about some of the things that we do that most people don’t know and how being a teacher is not just about teaching. I will acknowledge one of our “other jobs,” encourage you in that “job,” and give you a little challenge in your role in that “job.” I am excited about starting this, and I hope you will enjoy reading them and find a lot of encouragement from them!
I am repeating the push for sharing the Dear Teacher/Love Teacher Facebook Page this weekend that I did last weekend. The more people that here the messages of hope, the further this Teacher Encouragement revolution will spread! If you haven’t “Liked” the page, please do and join us! If you have or after you do, share! Share, share, share the page with everyone you know involved in education! Let’s see how far we can push this in one weekend! The number of page members tripled last week, let’s see if we can do that again!
This might be a motivation for you to want to join and share the Dear Teacher/Love Teacher Facebook Page. Tomorrow I am going to announce a giveaway there! The number of winners will be determined by the number of “Likes” on the page and the number of people who participate in the contest. For every 25 Likes on the FB page, there will be one winner in the giveaway. “Like” and share! The more the merry…who is not merrier when then win something?!
A quick note on the Dear Teacher/Love Teacher Facebook Page that might motivate you to “Like,” if you haven’t: I am going to start doing a majority of the promoting of the blog there and on Twitter. I am going to leave the Edmodo promoting more up to you. I would love to have each of you share the blog with your Connections and one Community that you are in each day! I would also love to have one person in charge of promoting in each of the main communities. I call dibs on Science! 🙂
Last but not least, I have finished another resource for the Teachers Pay Teachers Store, and I am very excited about this one! It is a printable note based on the image on this post. I don’t know if you can tell, but the “I Heart Your Awesomeness” image is my favorite one so far! The note is in a series of PDF files and four manipulable Word documents. The note is in a variety of sizes and comes as both B&W and color images. You can print and then use space to write a quick note and pass it on to a teacher or student to encourage and give hope! I plan on using these myself. I am so excited to just have them for myself. The Note of Awesomeness is on sale for $1 (28 printable pages for $1 is not bad at all…I’ve paid more than that for one thank you note!).
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use this picture if you link back to my blog.)
Thank you for indulging me in making these announcements! I hope you have an amazing weekend! Look for the S.O.o.T. post later today or tomorrow as well as more information about the Facebook giveaway!
You are an awesome and amazing teacher. Keep on teaching, Teacher!
On the Dear Teacher/Love Teacher Facebook page and Twitter feed I have start to share some cool and inspiring quotes about teachers, teaching, and education. To end off your week, I thought it would be a nice end to the week to share them and some more that I have found. If you are looking for a great source to find quotes, by the way, Brainy Quotes is the best source I have found online.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -Ben Franklin
“I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.” -John Steinbeck
“I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” -Albert Einstein
“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” -Albert Einstein, again
“Love is a better teacher than duty.” -Albert Einstein (can you tell I am a fan?)
“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.” -Robert Frost
“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” -Aristotle
“That is the difference between good teachers and great teachers: good teachers make the best of a pupil’s means; great teachers foresee a pupil’s ends.” -Maria Callas
“The greatest sign of success for a teacher… is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.'” -Maria Montessori
“The teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron.” -Horace Mann
I also shared this clip of Helen Keller. I thought it was amazing, so I will share it here, as well. Watch and be inspired!
Read, watch, enjoy, and share. You are awesome! Pick one of these quotes to motivate you over the weekend to help you get ready for next week! Keep on teaching, Teacher!
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the picture if you link back to this blog.)
Dear Teacher,
I don’t know if you have ever seen any of the space shuttles in person, but I have gotten to see three of them. I have to tell you, they are truly as awesome as they seem to be. Really. Truly magnificent!
One thing that makes them awesome is the sheer size. They are huge and hard to take in. Awesomeness number two is the fact is what these shuttles did. They went to space. Vast and wonderful space. They have carried people over and over to places that few people have ever been. Awesome fact three is how long they did this. They made trips to space for decades! And lastly (at least the last piece of awesome I will be sharing) is the time, effort, knowledge, and care that went into the shuttles to do what they did for so long.
They are a connection to something most people will never be directly connected to…and loving care went into allowing the ginormous shuttles to do this for a very long time!
I share this to say something that I have said before. Awesome is as awesome does (go ahead and hear it in the Forrest Gump voice). Teacher, you are awesome! You do awesome things! Don’t lose this in the grind of stress of every day life! You are awesome, so do awesome things. You do awesome things, and that makes you awesome. Be awesome!
You are amazing. You are believed in. And you are making a huge difference in the lives of your students. Keep being awesome and keep on teaching, Teacher!
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the image only if you link back to this blog.)
Dear Teacher,
Today I continued work on a big idea for next year at school, and I am so excited to see it start to take shape! It got me thinking about dreaming big. Our students need us to dream big! When we dream big, we give them high expectations which allows them to fly higher than they ever have before!
During my hiatus from the blog, I was able to take a trip to New York City for the first time as an adult. I loved the city! The bigness of the city made me want to dream bigger and reach heights I have never been to before. We need our classes to be New York City to our students! We need to them to be inspired to dream big for themselves…and our classes can be that inspiration!
You are so awesome and I know you dream big. Keep on dreaming and setting those goals high! You are amazing! Keep on teaching, Teacher!
For those of you on summer break, what have you been up to so far this summer? I have had a little break, as you know, but now I am back to work…at least the planning part of our job. My school is emphasizing planning over the summer, and understandably so. For this reason, this has been a week of intense planning for me. After a few days of hardcore planning like this, I feel very worn out. I don’t know how that goes for you, but it can get exhausting for me!
Or are you still in the let-last-year-fade-away phase of summer? It was a great year, or not so great, and you just need to let the memories slide away and relax a bit so that you can be ready for the next one. This is an important part of the summer. We can not carry all of the stress (good or bad) from last year into next year. A part of summer is to unwind so that you can get wound back up again. It is vital to your teaching heart to have a little time to let last year go! You have been emptied out and you need to fill back up!
To those teaching right now (especially the Southern Hemisphere-ers), how are things going for you? Are you still in the easier times of the year or is it the nose-to-the-grindstone time when the students are not as excited to be in school and you have a million things to do? Are you still pumped up and enthusiastic about all that you have to do? Or are you tired, beat up, and on the edge of burn out? Are you just somewhere on the roller coaster in between the too extremes?
Where ever you are in all of this, it is important to remember not to sweat the small stuff. Almost a month ago I posted about this and encouraged you to celebrate the small stuff. Today’s post is just a reminder to do just that! All of the little things that annoy us, wear us down, and beat us up little by little (including those held over from last year) can become a mountain that eventually falls and crushes us. We need to build a retaining wall against them…and we do that by celebrating all of those little things that are great every day, week, month, and year!
Another way to look at it is to think of the motivational poster I shared yesterday. As teachers, we really are a buoy in the water there to guide, protect, and lead our students to where they need to go. It can be lonely and hard as the “small stuff” comes in as waves and beat on us. The thing about buoys like the one in the poster, though, is that they are held in place by an anchor. Celebrating and remembering those little things that go well can be the anchor that holds us in place! The waves can come, but we know why we are there and why we became a teacher. To lead the way for a brighter future for our students!
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the picture only if you link back to this blog.)
So…
Summer planning teacher:
Celebrate what you have already finished!
Throw a party for the work you will not have to do during the year because you did it now!
Toast the great things that your students will be able to accomplish because you worked so hard to plan for them!
Summer relaxing teacher:
Celebrate those small changes you saw in your students throughout the year, especially the more challenging students!
Throw a party for the growth that you see in yourself as a teacher! You are an even better teacher than you were at this time last year!
Toast the accomplishment of a year well done, no matter if it was your best year, your worst, or somewhere in between! Teacher, you made it and now you are on the other side!
Teacher in the throws of teaching:
Celebrate those things that are going right! What is working well for you right now? Those are awesome! Celebrate them!
Throw a party for those students that are truly connecting to what you are teaching! This is why you do what you do! Have a 10 second party for these kids once in a while!
Toast the things that you have been able to notice that are not working and you have changed to teach your students better! How have you monitored and adjusted to improve student learning? Here’s to those things! Cheers!
Teacher, celebrate! Dig that anchor in deep and the sweaty small stuff won’t affect you as much! The celebrations are important. You need them. Don’t forget to celebrate a little something every day!
You are so awesome! You are a great teacher! You are making a difference! I truly believe in you! Keep on teaching, Teacher!
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the picture only if you link back to this blog.)
Dear Teacher,
Wow, I picked a timely issue when I decided to write today’s post. I have been sitting on this idea for almost a month, and I thought today would be a great day to write it. When I looked up red pandas to get a little more background information, this news story about a Red Panda that escaped from the National Zoo that was found today!
Anyway, the Red Panda.
I have been interested in red pandas ever since I was a kid and heard about them and saw one for the first time at, of all places, the National Zoo in Washington, DC. I really wanted to see the giant pandas that day, but Hsing Hsing and Ling Ling were in their buildings and did not come out that day. My attention was brought to the red pandas. I first I thought that they might be related to the panda bears, so I was excited. That excitement waned when my dad read that they were not even bears but were actually more like the Chinese raccoon (because they are related to the raccoon and found primarily in China).
I was disappointed, but the red panda has stuck with me since that day. I, like a lot of people, first heard the name red panda and thought it was a panda bear. It turns out, according to Wikipedia, that the “panda” in the red panda’s name is from the word in the language of Nepal for “eater of bamboo.” In terms of word meanings, the giant panda and red panda are related, but not else. I was confused and let down by the red panda because of this.
In the years since, I have grown to become affectionate for red pandas. I have learned more about them and I have come to see that they are amazing animals. They are beautiful, rare, and kind of fun to watch (when they are not sleeping…which the ones at the zoo where I live do a lot of). They have an interesting history and background, and they are a just cool animal…even if their name is misleading.
I share all of this, because we teachers are red pandas. So many people confuse and misunderstand what we do and who we are. People here the name “teacher,” and they immediately think of teachers they have had in the past or the picture of teachers on TV, in movies, or on the news. None of these media sources, or even memories of school years past, are an accurate picture of who we are today and what we do (and have to put up with). It is hard to truly understand teachers and teaching until you walk a few thousand miles in our shoes.
Teacher, you are the Red Panda. People may not understand you, but that is okay with you. You are still an amazing and special creature. You do what you do, and you do it well, no matter what other people think! You are the Red Panda of the human world, and you wear that with pride.
Teacher Red Panda, be proud of who you are. Be proud of what you do. Don’t take the misunderstanding of teaching to heart. Help people understand. They will come to see how awesome you are!
You are awesome! So awesome! You are believed in and you are special. You make a difference and you are changing the future! Keep on teaching, Teacher!
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the image if you link back to this blog.)
Dear Teacher,
Be that buoy today! Mark out where danger is. Lead people to the shore. Be a beacon of hope in troubled waters. You are AWESOME!! Keep on teaching, Teacher!
Dear Teacher/Love Teacher 