Teachers, you are loved.

I want to take a moment to encourage our teachers all around the country and world.

Often times, we have to do the work of encouraging each other, as (at least in America) it often feels like teachers are not respected to the same extent to the crucial nature of our occupation. Whether you are a Montessori teacher or not, your work matters tremendously. Your call is to teach others to learn, but more than that, you are a care provider. You take up the role of nurturing the minds and well-beings of a generation that will come after you, and this means you may not see the full fruit of your labor. Yet you do the work anyway. There is some deep love you must have towards the art of learning and sharing. It is not intrinsic to all human beings, though learning certainly is. So thank you. Thank you for caring for children who are not your own, yet you have made them your own. Thank you for taking the time to unravel how an idea works so that you can stitch it back together winsomely, piece by piece, in order that a child can understand it. Thank you for entertaining and encouraging others to keep doing hard tasks so that their minds will grow. Thank you.

I remember growing up that I had a main teacher for both first and second grade whose name was Mrs. Rogers (no relation to the gentleman in the sweater with a pet tiger named Daniel). She emanated such care and love towards me and the rest of the children. I cannot tell you what she taught me, though I'm sure it reinforced many of the lessons my parents so graciously provided at home. What I can tell you is she made teaching look like joy. I got the sense that she enjoyed what she did and that she enjoyed her students, including me. I believe I needed that experience early on to know that such a thing was possible: that with all the hats an educator must wear--often with little pay to show for it--it is a wonderful thing to be a teacher. Later, I would have educators who lost that vigor and joy, but Mrs. Rogers smile and energy was foundational. I wish she had a chance to know how much she meant to me and others. It would be great to tell her about the heroic feats of my teacher friends who are finding new ways to teach, even through the computer screen, or hybrid learning, or with masks on. That children are still learning from amazing men and women who quickly sanitize their desks before and after they leave their classrooms. That they are helping their own sons and daughters with at-home learning even while preparing lessons for the children of other families. It's beyond wild. I wonder what Mrs. Rogers would say about it all.

Most of all, I wish she could see that the level of care that she should to me and others has left a legacy of care for (at this point) hundreds of children and that I hope to carry on that legacy as far as I can.

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