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,
Let me introduce your Substitute Teacher for today. I am quite excited to share his thoughts with you, because it is different than any other post I have put up so far. It is a “teacher testimony” of sorts. It is the back story of a teacher and why he decided to put the hard work in to become and stay a teacher through all of the ups and downs of teaching. I think you are going to like this one!
Your teacher today is Mr. Tim Sexton. Teacher Tim has been a teacher for the past 15 years and is currently teaching at Davidson Middle School in Crestview, Florida. He believes that all students CAN learn and that it is our job to facilitate their learning. He teaches students to think for themselves and be responsible citizens in the school, the community in which they live and within their own lives.
It was 6 a.m. June 3, 1994, at the end of the graveyard shift of stocking at the local grocery. All night I was thinking of math formulas, biology vocabulary, and other items of testing interest for the second part of my day, college. The store manager had asked me to stay later because it was the July 4th weekend, and there was still product to put out for the potentially busy weekend. I told the manager that I was unable to stay because I had class at 8 a.m. You could see and hear the frustration as he told me to go to his office; he wanted to talk to me. I opened the door to the office to see him standing there huffing and insisting that I stay later to help out. I repeated, “I can’t”. He asked, “What are you going to school for?”
I told him I was going to school to become a teacher. As he replied while laughing, he said “you know teachers don’t make that much money, right?” I told him without hesitation this reply, “I know, but if I can keep one student off the beaten path I was forced to walk growing up, or see the “LIGHT” come on in the eyes of a student, that is worth any amount of money you can ever pay me.” He had nothing to say after that, and I left that office to continue my pursuit of fulfillment.
Have you forgotten your reason why you do this? Most of us are heading into our summer break tired, run down, and ready to do nothing but re-coop. Think about that question, “Why?” Why do you get up early to go a place that doesn’t seem to appreciate you? Why do you stay late trying to do a little extra for those same people that drove you crazy all day? Why do you make calls to parents who don’t care to talk to you? Why do you keep trying? Well, we do it because we care; we do it because we are called to do so; we do it to make a difference in the lives of young ones where this may be their only chance to find that difference. Take out those letters you have collected throughout the years from former students thanking you for being there, for teaching, for taking the time to say “HI” every day when no one else did. Those are reminders of “WHY” we continue doing what we do.
How do you answer that question? Whether you are a beginning teacher or 15 years into what appears on the outside a thankless profession, Look inside and remember your “WHY”.
Thank you, Teacher Tim! I love this idea of remembering our “WHY,” especially on those tough days!
Teacher, what is your “WHY?” Do you have a back story like this? Do you have a reason for teaching that you can look back to? Have you developed even stronger “WHYs” since you started teaching? I know I have! Please share yours with the class. 🙂 It is encouraging to hear the reasons other people teach, because it reminds you of yours.
You are awesome, Teacher Tim and every other Teacher reading this! You are believed in. You are amazing! Keep on teaching, Teacher!
(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! 🙂
Feel free to us this picture, but please link it back to this blog.
Dear Teacher,
We, as teachers, are really, really, REALLY good at one thing…sweating the “small stuff”. It is in our natures. It is who we are. It is a job requirement. There are countless details, issues, and expectations that we juggle and balance ever second of every school day. It is a part of the job, and we know this. We take the “small stuff” seriously! Sometimes, though, all of the little things overwhelm us and fall on us like a land slide…or at least this happens to me.
It has hit me recently, that I need to work against that happening. I need something in place to keep that avalanche from overtaking me. I need a retaining wall to keep my mountain of “small stuff” at bay so that it does not collapse and smother me! And I accidentally found a way to do this…ironically, it involves using the little things to my advantage.
A stone or brick retaining wall can hold back a lot of dirt and sediments. These walls support a hill so that it does not erode and fall apart. The stones or bricks are stacked in a way that retain what ever is behind them…thus the name retaining wall. 🙂 However, one or a couple of bricks/stones do not do the job. It takes a lot to have a wall. Compared to the hill, one brick is small. But an army of bricks can tame that hill and hold it back.
We need a retaining wall to hold back our millions of small things so that we can survive each day, especially when those things are teetering on the brink of falling down on us. How do we do this? We take some of our small things and build that wall that we need. We need to celebrate the “small stuff”!! We need to reflect and find the small things that we have succeeded will and have a mini-party and remember them throughout the day. We need to bind a bunch of these together, see that we are making progress, and use them as motivation to keep chugging away and moving over our mountains of little things.
What can you celebrate today?
Find something in each of your students, or a difficult handful, that you can look at and see growth…and then tell them that you are proud of them for it.
Look at your to do list and be happy about the few things that you have gotten to-done.
Ask a colleague to tell you something that they see in you that is going well, and offer the same feedback to him or her.
Fix one thing you can fix today, fix it, and then let yourself smile about it.
Reflect and find one or two things you can be really proud of yourself for right now, and let yourself be proud…don’t let humble yourself out of a celebration.
These are just a few suggestions, can you think of more? Please share if you come up with some cool things that me and other teachers can look to and celebrate so that we can all start building our walls!
I will practice what I preach right now. Let me celebrate some of the “small stuff” about this blog that has happened in the three weeks since I have started:
There have been almost 8000 views in these three weeks!
Last Friday, there was almost 1000 views to the blog in one day!
I need to let myself feel good about these achievements! And I need to thank you for making them happen. Thank you, Teacher! You are awesome!
Now, it is your turn! Start celebrating your “small stuff” and build your wall! I know you have a lot to celebrate because you are a great teacher, and you are AWESOME! Keep on teaching, Teacher!
Just wanted to give you a quick update…the encouragement revolution has spread to Facebook! If you are a Facebook-er, check out the page! Like it, if you’d like. 🙂
To quote one of my new personal heroes, Kid President, “I think we all need a pep talk.”
I was thinking about what to write this morning, I realized how tired I was and not ready for the day. I need a pep talk. And if I need one, you probably need one. So, I will pep talk myself and you at the same time.
Because I do not know where you are or what you may be going through and need right now, I am going give a bunch of pep mini-talks. Figure out which one you need, and run with it. It is choose-your-own-pep-talk-adventure day. 🙂
Bad Week at School (there are three main possible bad kind of weeks…pick the pep talk you need):
Teacher, you know it does get better. Another day is always around the corner. Things will pick up. You will pick things up. You are good like that. Why not pick things up today. Be the change your week needs. Control the things you can control, be awesome at them, and let everything else go. Bad weeks are not forever. Turn this week around and look for the good. You can do it. You know you can. You are awesome, so make the rest of the week awesome. Be the awesome.
Teacher, your students love you. You know that they do. It may not seem like it after the week you have had, but they do love you. Be patient. Be understanding. Be awesome to them. They will awesome you back. I promise. Pick a couple that need extra patience and care…give them that patience and care, and they may turn and influence the rest of your students! It gets better. It will get better. Just wait for the better and do not give up.
Teacher, administration is just doing their job. Even if things seem over the top, just do what you do best. Focus on your kids. Let every choice you make be traced back to what is best for your students. Things will usually pan out in your favor if you do. You are great at your job. You are awesome! Do not stress out. Do not let the pressure make you think less of yourself. Keep on being the best teacher you can be. Take the criticism and let it make you better. If it is undeserved, then find a way to move past it. I know you can. You are awesome. Remember, whatever it is, it will soon pass…or at least pass eventually! Keep teaching, Teacher. Keep pressing on!
Issues Outside of School (pick the one you need):
Teacher, you have a job to do. I know it is hard, but find a way to leave what is heavy on your mind and heart at the doorway of your classroom. Love your kids. Turn your stress and pressure into a motivation to show your students how much you care. Slow down at school. Enjoy what you love doing: teaching. You are a teacher because you love it. Love what you do and let that help you relieve some of that outside stress. You can leave all of that until the afternoon. You are awesome. You are a professional. Push through that personal pain and be the awesome teacher that you are! Let your students love you through whatever it is.
Teacher, you are not on your own. You are surrounded by teachers that understand. Talk to someone you trust. Let them help you carry your burden. If you need some time to yourself today, find someone to help you work that out. Your fellow teachers understand. We have all had those times. Do not carry this alone if you do not have to. When life gets to be too much, you can not let that affect your relationship with your students. Find someone to help. Help is out there and ready. You are not alone!
Summer Time Teacher (I can’t address everything, but hopefully you can find something to apply):
Teacher, you are on a break, but you are still a teacher. Relax, but do not get lazy. Get something ready for next year. Work on something today. Find something cool you can do in the coming year. Read a book or search for one to start. Don’t forget who you are on the inside…a teacher. Research, talk to other teachers, brainstorm…do something! You are awesome and I know you will think about teaching in some way…and that is one of those reasons you are a great teacher!
Teacher, STOP working. Take a break. Next year will get here soon enough. Spend time with your friends and family. Play with your kids, if you have them. Spend time with your significant other, if you have one. See some friends. Do something that is not school related. As a matter of fact, do not think about school at all. You are an awesome teacher, but take a break! You do not have to be Teacher of the Year over the summer. Relax and recharge for next year. Your students need you to!
Okay, I know I have not addressed everything. I hope I wrote something that helps you! You are awesome, Teacher! You are believed in! You are cared for! Go out and do something awesome today!
Dear Teacher/Love Teacher 