why teachers teach – Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

Dear Teacher,

This week was full of some heavy posts…inspiring and encouraging, but still heavy. I thought I might make today a lighter day and celebrate some of what we love about teaching! And because my post have been longer this week, I am going to have you do more watching than reading. 🙂

Our job is difficult. We try to use innovative methods and strategies, but sometimes it just doesn’t seem like the kids are getting it. Sometimes it feels like this…you may or may not remember this Saturday Night Live sketch from the 90’s. If you have seen it, watch it again and enjoy. If you haven’t seen it, watch it for the first time and laugh your socks off! It is hilarious, but it is amazing how it actually feels this way sometimes! The only difference is that in real life you don’t give up…you don’t give up because you are AWESOME! 🙂

Now, unfortunately, the world at-large thinks that it is really always like this and that we are just flying by the seat of our pants. But we don’t. We plan. We fight. We do all that we need to do to make the biggest impact we can on students. It is hard work, and we don’t get paid enough to do it. That doesn’t matter to us, in the big picture, though because we know we do this for more than money. Sometimes it is hard to get other people to understand why, though. Here is another video you may or may not have seen; but you most likely have heard the dinner party story before. Taylor Mahi does an awesome job of telling the story and showing the passion of why we do what we do. Have a watch.

To round out this all out, I want to go back to the first video. That was a comical look at what we do, but I want you to see a teacher’s perspective, someone like us, on what we do day to day…and why we love it. I found this while I was looking for the Taylor Mahi video. This is another one by him, and I really think it sums it all up nicely.

You are so awesome. What you do is hard. It takes time, it takes heart, it takes grit. You are good at it. You are making a difference. You are a miracle worker, and you are amazing! Never give up and never surrender to stress that we swim in. Keep going and keep teaching, Teacher!

Wait…before you go. I want to give a weekend homework assignment. Homework over the weekend? Yes, home work over the weekend! I want you to go through and find three of your favorite posts here at Dear Teacher/Love Teacher and share them with someone (or a lot of someones). Share on Edmodo, Facebook, Twitter, email, or how ever else you can. Then come back here and tell us all the response. Encouragement is hard to find in our job sometimes, so when we find it we need to share it!

Thank you, Awesome Teacher! You are the best!

Love, Teacher

PS…Oh, and for those of you who use Edmodo, I have started an Edmodo Group for the daily updates. This way I will be able to make the “Edmodo blasts” in the Communities few and far between…I don’t know that everyone “loves” them. 🙂

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!

Love, Teacher