I once had someone make the following statement to me: “It must be nice to be a teacher. All you do is color all day!”
It took all I had to smile politely and walk away.
At this point in the school year, I will guarantee you that 99% of educators would LOVE for this statement to be true. News flash! It’s not.
Go find a teacher. Any teacher. Hug them and ask them if they are okay. To tell you the truth, they will hug you back and insist that they are fine. They aren’t.
This is the time in the school year where the pressure is on. State tests, that are pretty much impossible, are looming. Many evaluations depend on how students perform on these standardized tests (that is a whole different soap box for another post). Students are giving up on themselves, teachers are exhausted, pressure is on everyone, and behaviors, due to being cooped up, are escalating.
Many teachers I know, including myself, worry about, think about, stew about, and kick themselves about the school day, and their students, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Heck, many of us have dreams about our students and our classrooms. We don’t have a 9-5 job. We have a lifetime job.
Now, don’t get me wrong, we as educators knew we were signing up for this. None of us signed up because we love testing. We went into this profession to help students through these struggles. In these struggles, we begin to teach our students about life.
So, please be kind to educators everywhere. We aren’t perfect. We will make mistakes. I am very honest with my students and tell them when I make mistakes. They need to see it is normal, and it is okay. They need to know it is okay to struggle, but they need to be guided on how to pull through.
My students…well….winter is dragging on. They know that big things are coming. However, I am more concerned about showing them how to dig in their heals and push forward. Even when it seems impossible…and the winter is more wintery every day…..my goal is to encourage them to keep going.
Go hug a teacher and tell them they are awesome. If you ARE a teacher, consider this my hug to you. You are awesome. You are wonderful. You are exactly what your students need. You are enough! Go get em’ tiger. Tomorrow is a new day.
Real Teacher Real Life 
Jordan, This is such a wonderful post. It is so true about teachers feeling the real crunch now. I remember hearing, “Boy, you are lucky! You get snow days off while the rest of us have to go to work. You have two hour delays all the time and don’t have to be at work!” Yes, we stay home during snow days and maybe during two hour delays, but those delays and cancellations mean re-writing lesson plans, re-teaching material students need to recall from the last time they were in school. The state does not delay the standardized testing, and those students are still expected to perform as if they had been in school all those cancellations and delays. The pressure mounts for both students and teachers when they get back to school. Yes, teachers appreciate not having to drive in those conditions and maybe having an extra cup of coffee on a snowy morning, but the work and worry accumulate as fast as the snow.
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