Educators Deserve Standing Ovations

We just finished our last school day with students. This school year has felt impossibly hard. We love our students. We love our work. And yet, many of us find ourselves wondering if we can keep doing these jobs.

It makes me worry about the future of our schools.

It makes me worry about the future of our profession.

It makes me worry about the future of our world.

This week has been one filled with immense sadness and fear. When the world feels heavy, teachers make the world feel light for our students. So, we need to make the world lighter for teachers. The best way to take really good care of our students is to take really good care of educators.

We need systemic change.

In the meantime, here we are. We show up to school every day. We show up and care for the hearts and minds of children and our colleagues.

And I want to give voice to this: there is no good deed that is too small.

Don’t listen to that voice that tells you that it doesn’t matter – it matters. That handwritten note. That kind text. That hug. That little treat. That phone call. That day you covered a class to give a teacher a much needed moment. It all matters. We all matter.

At the end of the day today, we invited staff into our courtyard for some cheap popsicles and ice cream. We played music and blew bubbles. We cheered for teachers as they walked through the door to join us.

Many smiled when we cheered for them. Some started dancing. And many joined in the clapping and cheering as we yelled, “You did it!”

As someone who spends a lot of time with teachers, I can tell you that they deserved every second of that standing ovation. I see the deep sense of care they bring to their students and student learning every day.

It was just popsicles. And there was a part of me that wondered if we should bother doing it.

Bother. Bother doing it. It’s worth it. A teacher said to me, “We should make this a tradition every year.”

I don’t know much. But I know how to love.

And our teachers deserve it.

Our educators deserve standing ovations.

Educators lift the world. Let’s lift them up. When we lift educators, we all rise.