end of the school year – Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

Are We There Yet? Exhaustion and Last Days…

Posted on May 20, 2016 by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

Dear Teacher,

It is drawing ever nearer to the last days of school (if you aren’t already there). You are tired. No…strike that. You are completely and utterly exhausted. This school year has done you in. You are so done with all of the chaos and drama.

And you deserve to feel that way…it has been a TOUGH year.

You have made it through, but only barely.

The last weeks and days of school are a light at the end of the tunnel, and you feel like your students do right before the buses come. You are just watching that clock.

You keep waiting for the seconds to tick down. And they feel slow incredibly slow. Why can’t it just be over. You need it to be over.

Let me remind you, it is almost time. You are almost there.

You need this summer…and summer’s coming, friend. Summer is coming!

It is okay that you’re worn out right now. If you weren’t, I would be worried that there is something wrong with you or if you might actually be a superhero…or alien…or both. This year has been rough, and you should be tired in every way shape and form.

And for this reason, it is also okay to be excited about your coming “break” – even with all of the work you have to do eventually over the summer…it still counts as a break. You get to recharge. You get to relax. You get to unwind from the stress of this year.

DearTeacherLT2016 (You may use the image if you link back to the blog and/or give credit to Dear Teacher/Love Teacher)

You have done well this year, my Teacher Friend. You have made a difference this year, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. You have earned the right to look forward to the summer. You have my permission to watch the clock. 🙂

You are an amazingly awesome teacher! You will always be. Enjoy the rest of the year! Keep on clock-watching…errr…I mean teaching, Teacher!

Love, Teacher

General Inspiration, Hope for Teachers, Note to Teachers, Teacher Song, Theme Song

Hello From the Other Side (of the school year)

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

Dear Teacher,

It is almost the end of the year…I think it calls for a special post. Theme song post time!

I have actually been thinking about this one for a while. The song is “Hello” by Adele. The song is great, but lately I have started to think about my teaching life and the different versions of my teacher self throughout the school year.

What if I could call and talk to myself at the beginning of the year? What would I say? What would I hold back? Would I advise? Would I apologize? I don’t know…but I am going to give it a shot here. Please “listen in” on my conversation with myself and think about what you might say to yourself.

Oh, and I realize that this is a just a cover of the original song, but I really like this version…so click play and then read on.

Hello.

It’s me.

We need to talk.

First of all, I would just like to say, you are so awesome! Your ideas and energy. It is why I teach. You know that you are going to make a difference this year, and I love you for this. Don’t lose that. Never lose that.

However…

Hello from the other side.

This is going to be a rough year. You are going to face trials and troubles like you have never seen. You are going to have your teaching heart broken. You are going to want to quit.

You will really consider it.

I wish I would have gotten in touch with you sooner.

I have needed your spark and light.

There are going to be times that the spark is going to almost be extinguished and that light is going to dim.

I am sorry to tell you, but you are barely going to make it through the year alive (as a teacher).

I have barely made it.

I am barely here.

Your full-on sprint at the beginning of the year is going to taper down to where I am right now. I am crawling to the finish line. And I can barely breathe. I am barely teacher living.

I am sorry for what I have done to you.

I really am.

But..

Hello from the other side.

Let me just assure of one undeniable truth. From where I am right now, it was worth it.

I can see where our students have come from and how far they’ve come. We have made a difference. We have changed lives. We have done everything that your optimistic heart hoped and dreamed for this year. We’ve done it!

You will be completely drained, beat-up, and exhausted, but you have affected the lives of your students for forever. Amazing things have happened in our classroom this year. There has been magic. There has been wonder.

Do not give up the fight.

Keep going.

Keep running.

Keep fighting.

It will all be worth it in the end!

Hello from the other side…

Thanks for reading my little message to myself. Did you see yourself in this? Could you have the same conversation with your beginning-of-the-year-you?

You know, no matter what happened this year, beautiful things happened in that classroom of yours. Magic and life change did occur. Everything you went through was worth it for the sake of your students. To help remind you of this, I want to close this note to you with a few more teachers stories of classroom beauty and magic that happened this year. And if you would like to share a story of wonder from your classroom, you can do so here.

Teacher Michelle – Kindergarten

I work hard on creating a family out of my class of kindergarteners. They come from very low income homes and have very rough lives. In my classroom we work hard on creating relationships and bonding.It can get really hard, but the rewards are worth it.

Recently a child in my class won a ticket to Six Flags for being the only one who completed the required minutes of reading and turned the paper in. when i announced it to my class, i honestly expected to hear a lot of whining and “why didnt I get one!?” But INSTEAD… when i made the announcement my ENTIRE CLASS began applauding and shouting out “good job!” and “good for you!”

That was the day I knew we were a family.

Teacher Joanne – High School (Retired)

I retired from full time teaching and now work as an office manager for a national tax preparation company.
During the season, I was assisting a client who was accompanied by one of my former students, a friend of hers. She asked him if he had done his taxes yet, and he said, “Oh yes, Ms. Maura taught us all about it in finance class.” I wanted to hug him, but I said, “Thank God someone was paying attention that day!” I won’t also mention all of the greetings I get in the community (I live in the city where I taught for 20+ years).

Teacher Alice – High School

My first year of teaching was a challenging experience, as it is for many teachers. I was teaching 6-7 periods a day, and my classes were mutli-leveled ESL classes. In one class, I had everything from a level one (absolute beginner) to 5 (advanced, ready to transition to mainstream) in the same class. I struggled mightily.

At the end of the year, I assigned the students to write a thank you letter to someone in the building that had made a difference for them during the year. One sweet, upper level student, who had been an immense help to me in that challenging class, placed her note on my desk at the end of the class and told me to open it. The text of the note read, “thank you, thank you, thank you! One thank you for all you taught me this year, one thank you for being there for me, and one thank you for how you change my life. Always remember this, Miss: stars need darkness to shine. I may not know how to write a letter, but I know there is not a wrong way to say thank you.” I sat at my desk and bawled.

Teacher, you are making a difference and have done amazing work this year! You are so awesome! Please know that everything you went through this year was worth. You have had a greater effect than you will ever know. Thanks for all that you do! Hold on…the year is almost over! Keep on doing the incredible things you do and keep on teaching, Teacher!

Love, Teacher

PS…Dear Teacher/Love Teacher is looking for a little help. Check this out for more information. Thanks!

General Inspiration, Hope for Teachers, Pep Talk

Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes

Posted on June 17, 2015June 17, 2015 by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

Dear Teacher,

I know that is has been a long time since I have written to you. It has been quite a school year, and I am entering a time of transition. Before I get to that, let’s talk about this past year.

How did it turn out for you? How did everything go? If you are reading this, you made it out alive, so that is something. 🙂

Image: http://www.firstgradenest.com/

It was quite a year for me. There is not one word to describe it. It was challenging. It was trying. It was stressful. It was enlightening. It was strange. It was insightful. It was life-changing. It was. It just was.

I don’t know that I had a more difficult year with students. It wasn’t their behavior so much as it was their attitude towards learning. In a time when the stakes could not be higher for students to show growth, it seemed like my students were the least interested in growing. Was it like that for you this year?

That made teaching rough. I believe in students having the responsibility of learning and turning that responsibility over to them throughout the year. So many did not want to take those reigns from me. My classroom was student-centered, but I found that I wound up in the center so many times just to get through content.

I learned a lot about motivating students and a lot about motivating myself. How do I keep going with the idea of being brain-centered and student-centered when it seems like I am gaining so little ground. I learned to keep my head down and keep going down the road and trusting what I know is right for my students…but it was hard. Very hard. That is one of the reasons that I wrote so little to you this year.

But I made it.

You made it.

We made it!

I want to encourage you, Teacher. If it was a hard year for you, as it was for me, there is hope. You can do anything for a year and then you can look forward to the next. You know what is right for your students, even if they do not. Take some time and reflect this summer. What went right? What went wrong? Where do you need to dig in and keep going? What are some things you can let go of next year?

Keep on keeping on. Do what you know is right. Take a stand for what needs to be stood up for. Be the awesome teacher that you are.

Not every year will go well. Sometimes there will be a string of bad years. Sometimes your working environment will be challenging. Sometimes you will want to pack it in.

Remember one thing, though.

Your students need you. They really do.

If you keep doing what is right, day after day and year after year, things will eventually go right for you in ways that you know you are going in the right direction. Trust me.

A little about my life and transitions…

After nine years of trying to be the best teacher that can be at a Title I school and having strings of difficult years, there has been a change. My hard work was noticed. I was hired to work at my district’s science center. I will be moving out of the traditional classroom and be teaching students from all over my district and my area throughout the year.

It was difficult to pack up and leave my school for good after being there for so long…there were some tears…but I know that this is right. I am going to love every minute of my new job and I will be able to help more students fall in love with learning and help other teachers learn new ways to foster that love in students, too.

That being said, that leaves this blog in a state of flux. I need a little feedback here.

Since I will no longer be in the normal classroom, will you still accept my encouragement and advice here? How can I stay current with the struggles that you have in your classroom? How can I change the format of the blog to help you stay encouraged?

One thing I know that I can do is offer for you to email and let me know of a struggle in the classroom you are having. I can write directly to what you are going through here (keeping out any personal information). Would that be a helpful aspect to this blog? (My email is dearteacher@outlook.com.)

Let me know any ideas that you have! Thanks!

Teacher, take some time for yourself this summer. Find ways to recharge and heal from the year. Don’t spend too much time getting ready for the next round. Just be for a while. Just be.