Dear Teacher, You Were Made For This
Dear Teacher,
It’s that time of year again when you’re busy working in your classroom, moving that heavy filing cabinet, and killing the big spiders that have been locked up all summer, but are scurrying about at the sound of movement in the building. That’s one of my most dreaded parts, honestly.
You’re anxiously organizing things in your room, cleaning up dirt and dust, and moving that bookshelf, yes, again, because “it just didn’t look right there.” You have recruited your husband, wife, mother, father, best friend, or kids to spend countless hours moving and setting up with you and they do not once gripe or complain because they see how hard you work to set up the very best space possible for the 25 or 30 or 60 or 75 students that will soon be walking into your room.
“You’re anxiously organizing things in your room, cleaning up dirt and dust, and moving that bookshelf, yes, again, because ‘it just didn’t looks right there.’”
Or maybe you have already gone back to school and you are still trying to get in the groove, learning your students’ names and figuring out who can sit beside who.
No matter if you have gone back or are anxiously preparing yourself for a new group of kiddos in under two weeks, are moving rooms because you are moving to a different grade, or are a first-year teacher kind of like myself, about to have your first ever group of students and you are so nervous, yet excited, that you can hardly stand it, because you have dreamed of this day since you were teaching school as a little girl in your bedroom to your stuffed animals, and you have written so many papers for this -- I see you.
“Dear Teacher, I see you.”
I see how much of your own money you spend because you need more supplies and the 30 glue sticks you get at the beginning of the year don’t last you a week. I see you spending your last few days of summer break at school until 6pm just to make sure you get your classroom looking “just right.
I see how much you have bought and printed off of Teachers Pay Teachers because you wanted the pretty font and you wanted the best back to school activities to do with your kids.
I see the countless hours you have put into organizing your unit binders and your cabinets so when the first day comes, you feel organized and ready.
And when the first day does comes, I know that you will wake up earlier than your alarm because you are just that excited about the new year, the new possibilities, and the new faces you will be meeting in just a few short hours. You pour your coffee into your teacher mug, put on your favorite back-to-school outfit, and place your badge around your neck, and off you go to your first day. It might be your 19th first day of school as a teacher or your very first, but either way, off you go, and as you pull into the parking lot, get out of your car, walk into school, say hello to some new and familiar faces, you may get butterflies, but then you’ll walk down the hall to your room, and you will smile, because you know that you were made for this.
“You know that you were made for this.”
And you know that no matter what, you would not trade getting a chance to walk into this school building to impact hundreds of little lives for anything. And you know that there are not enough naysayers walking planet earth that could ever convince you otherwise. You know that no matter the forces you have to fight to be the best teacher you could possibly be, you will fight them to the end, because to surrender would be to let down the kids.
When that first day is over, you will sit back and think about all that happened, who talked a lot, who wouldn’t talk at all, and who you may have to move to a different seat. You will anxiously prepare for the next day, wipe your board, clean your desks, and worry about the kid that didn’t have much to say, and then you will go home, go to sleep, and prepare to wake up and do it all over again.
“You will go home and prepare to go to sleep to wake up and do it all over again.”
And as you walk out of the building, and you may be one of the last people leaving, your feet will hurt and your bag might be heavy, but you will smile because your heart will be full and you will know that you were made for this.
And when you are made for something, you will feel it, and it will shine out of you like the sun. And that’s really all some of our kids need. The sun.
“That’s really all some of our kids need. The sun.”
Dear Teacher, I see you. I’m with you. From one teacher to another, let’s do this.
With love,
Brittany Jeanine