Teacher appreciation, will it continue?

Teachers are, in my opinion, selfless heroes. They are often unappreciated and underfunded. Ask any teacher and they will tell you that they are not in the classroom because of the money, the appreciation, or the respect, but because they genuinely care about the learning and well being of every single student in their classroom. They care about each student that comes through their classroom. Teachers also do not just care about a child for a year, but for a lifetime. These teachers will go above and beyond for their children, and that is exactly how they see their students. Each student is an extension of their family. Every year when a teacher gets a new class, they get a new set of children that they will laugh with, cry with, worry about, and, most importantly, love as their own child. They spend eight hours every day talking to, teaching, and engaging with these kids. Yet, they are underappreciated.

When a student is hurting, so is his teacher. They want to help fix their problems. They want every child to succeed. Some people think that teachers became teachers because it is the easy route, that they wanted weekends, nights, and summers off. In reality that is not true. A teacher’s work is never done. Once they are done taking care of their school families, they go home and take care of their own families. Their work is truly never done.

When this pandemic started, you could see a flood of social media posts praising teachers. They spend all day teaching children, and as parents started realizing just how much work teachers were really doing during the day, parents decided to show that appreciation. But let me ask you a few questions: Why did it take a national emergency for people to appreciate these heroes, and how long after this is over will we still praise these teachers?

During these unprecedented times I have gotten to watch firsthand just how much these teachers truly care about their students, and I do mean every single student. I have watched the sadness as they realize that some students no longer get the escape of school and as they realize that their students are going to fall behind. They worry about what the student will eat and what kind of structure they have at home. I have watched as they worry about the students they have not heard from. But also, I have watched as they start to plan how to fix this. They are already making plans deciding how they will catch their students up when they finally get to see them again. All the while they are teaching themselves how to use new technology and doing everything they can to keep in contact with those students who are willing. They are pushing their students to be their best even when their students do not want to be pushed. When this is all over, these teachers are ready to go back to being the underappreciated, underfunded people they were before because they are doing it for their students.  

Someday these students will look back and appreciate the teacher that helped them through, that pushed them to be their best, to do their best. Students will appreciate the teachers that believed in them in even when they could not believe in themselves. But why should teaches have to wait years before they have someone appreciate them? I think it is time we let these teachers know that their work does not go unnoticed, and when this is all over, let’s not let our teachers go back to being unappreciated.