Teacher Appreciation Week: How to REALLY Appreciate our Teachers
Another Teacher Appreciation Week is upon us. If ever there were a year to roll out the red carpet and show appreciation with vigor, this would be it. The phrase “I can’t imagine” is usually glib, but it’s quite literal as we reflect on what our teachers have gone through this year. Every ritual, pattern, and rhythm teachers have in their background were tossed out the window. Unabashed care and concern for students were heavy burdens for them. Mental health breaks as simple as eating a sandwich with colleagues was taken away. In some schools, even the most basic modicum of self-determination and efficacy were sorely missing.
Oftentimes our recognition of Teacher Appreciation Week can come off as platitudinous. While gift cards for coffee or thank you banners hung around school are certainly worthy recognitions of teachers’ efforts, they fall short if we collectively want to honor this most noble of professions. Teachers will receive gift cards and flowers and cards that let them know they are appreciated from administration and the PTO, but next week will have the same stressors and complications as they did last week. With that in mind, here is a short (and incomplete) list of ways we can deeply and truly honor educators.
If you’re a parent:
Think twice before sending that email
The client base for a single teacher is overwhelming. They have students, colleagues, administrators, and parents to whom they are accountable. They also have their own lives of friends, family, and their own children. Even if they worked 16 hours a day (which most do), they’d still struggle to be uniquely attentive to everyone’s needs. Before sending that email ask yourself, “Am I showing grace and understanding? Am I exhibiting maturity and patience? Am I phrasing this request fairly and with a kind tone?”
Teach your students to handle their own business
As you consider intervening on behalf of your student, pause and ask if this is a golden opportunity for your student to work directly with his or her teacher. You not only help build a positive relationship between your student and the teacher, you also help develop critical skills of communication for your child. You feed two birds with one biscuit!
If you’re an administrator:
Let teachers solve their own problems
I know you want to take care of your teachers and remove stress for them. I appreciate that. But all too often, your attempts to solve their problems for them can lead to misaligned practices and an unintended outcome of not letting the very people affected by decisions weigh in on them. While admirable that you’re tending to them, you very well might be marginalizing their professional experience.
Schedule your own sacred time
Happy admin, happy staff. Do you love visiting classrooms? Eating with students in the cafeteria? Going to games? How do YOU connect best with your educators and students? Having these important moments in your own professional life carved into your week allows you to connect with those you serve, build trusting relationships, and have a better shared lived experience with your educators. All of these additives only serve to reduce your stress and the stress of others.
If you’re a colleague:
Live by the “Oath of Collegiality”
At Eklund Consulting, we’ve used an “Oath of Collegiality” with many staffs during fall workshops. It is simply this: “I (insert name here) do solemnly swear that my presence in your work and life will not make your work or life more difficult.” This oath does not set a standard where everyone will be best friends. We might not go to each other’s kid’s birthdays. But we will live by an ethos where we own our impact on one another, are mindful of our behavior, and respect the base needs of our colleagues.
Appreciate each other
You already do this. You already watch your colleagues do what they’re best at. This is just an invitation and reminder to say aloud the great things you think about others. We all want to know we’re noticed. Drop a note. Pop your head in and share a kind word. Make this a habit. A whole culture of people appreciating each other no matter what week of the year is a place at which we all want to work.
Teachers, you’re the best. Thank you a million times over. My greatest hope for you is that you feel valued and appreciated every week of the year, not just this one.