Becoming A Teacher Part 3

This story marks the third entry of a series I’m calling

 “On Becoming a Teacher”

These little ones are 40 years old now!

There is so much discussion about teachers these days. Instagram and Facebook have cleverly depicted video shorts of what teachers are facing in and out of the classroom.

Here are a few of my favorites:

(remember, I’m a special ed teacher and a physical education teacher for a middle school)

Recently, I was asked to make a video for the Biden administration regarding my student loans.

I started out by showing the degrees that I was required to earn to hold my teaching positions.

Like many of my cohorts, I have two master's degrees, one bachelor's degree, and one associates degree. I am a certified yoga instructor, certified Yoga Kids instructor, and certified mindfulness based stress reduction instructor for teenagers.  I also have a certification at the interpreter level for American Sign Language.

BUT, I wasn’t satisfied with the required documents for qualification to become a teacher. So, I added these documents as well.  

A friend of mine, the most fabulous fifth grade teacher I’ve ever met, advised me to create a file called, “The feel good file.”

Inside of it, I was supposed to place these special notes from my students who appreciated a small gesture, or a lesson, or just provided me with a sweet note expressing their thoughts about my relationship with them as their school teacher.

She told me, “look inside the file when you feel low about teaching. There’s going to be days when parents call or email you with complaints far beyond your capability to manage or change the situation. You’re going to be exhausted on a daily basis and students will, perhaps, be the only ones who see the effort and the energy required to create magic.”

So I took her advice.

I created the file and 34 years later, I have a large  collection of  special notes students sent to me in appreciation of a teaching moment or event. 

They took the time to write it out so I’m taking the time to display their gratitude.

There were notes  filled with misspellings and words crossed out, and then rewritten again. There were words filled with crayon scribbles and renditions of art that they knew I would appreciate.

I kept them safe and tucked away in a filing cabinet. At the end of a week or perhaps it was a month, I would open up the drawer and make a deposit of another sweet and endearing letter,  note or a sticky pad and tucked it away in the file folder.

For my last year of teaching, I decided to take out all of the notes and place them on a wall length bulletin board. I illuminated the board with Christmas lights and a spotlight stating,

“Be kind - for these are the only words students need to hear.”

Gretchen, my friend and co-teacher, later became Canyons Teacher of the Year.

She won this accolade during her final year of teaching as she had received a breast cancer diagnosis and wanted to stay home with her three and five-year-old children. She eventually passed away due to cancer.

I wrote about her in a blog titled, “the wishing tree.”

On this day, my husband and I traveled up the mountain with her family to a wild horse sanctuary for Mustangs. We wanted so badly to have her meet with the Healing horses and then take a small hike to the wishing tree with her family.

I carry Gretchen’s words within my heart every time I teach. My wall depicts evidence of my years of relating to children in the only way I know how—with kindness.

I believe she watches over me during times when she’s not watching over her own children. In a way she is my teacher mentor guiding angel.

While recording the video to the Biden administration, I mentioned that the degrees were required for me to hold the positions that I did. I added that they were not the documents that made me the teacher that I have become.

I think it’s important to mentor incoming teachers in ways that extend beyond the degrees by teaching the passion work this difficult job requires. It’s not a career intended for the thin skinned personality. It is one that indeed requires the most determined type of steadfastness and commitment. 

I have mentored University of Utah students for the past 18 years. I often tell them that I hope they get their most difficult assignments first. 

For me, these assignments included: teaching Deaf and Hard of hearing students in a narrow faculty lounge with no bulletin board or desks; teaching dance in the hallway because there was no room available; teaching “oppositional, defiant disorder” identified students in the former wood shop classroom (surrounded by equipment that could easily remove limbs).

I tell them this because they were the best lessons for me, which created a type of resiliency that I rely on to this day.

One of my favorites!

It’s the best career I’ve ever had,

I hope you find joy in what you do❤️