Teacher Appreciation - It's Not Too Late!

Many thanks to the PTA for coordinating this year’s Teacher Appreciation Week and for all the parents and students who participated. If you did not get a chance to participate, it is never too late. Please find a teacher, teaching assistant, counselor, teacher-librarian, or administrator and tell him or her how grateful you are for their work with your child.

Unless you have tried it, it is hard to understand how difficult teaching is. Teachers have to be ready every day with engaging lessons across a variety of topics and then be ready to adjust those lessons to the abilities, background knowledge, mental blocks, passions, and daily mood swings of as many as two dozen unique individuals sitting before them. If a teacher is tired or having a bad day, there is no flexibility in their schedule – the students will still arrive when the lesson is scheduled to begin and will be expecting the teacher to perform at 100% no matter what. Teachers navigate literally thousands of large and small decisions and social interactions every day. When the lessons are done, there are papers to grade, Managebac or SeeSaw posts to update, meetings to attend, and extra help sessions to support students. And then it’s time to switch gears and coach, advise an activity, chaperone an event, or work on a professional development or service activity - much of which is done on a volunteer basis. Then it all starts again the next day. At other times, a teacher may volunteer to take on the very heavy burden of in loco parentis responsibility for other people’s children on a field trip, an athletic trip, or even a multi-day Explore Zambia or international trip. That kind of 24/7 responsibility is truly exhausting.

Although teaching is very hard work, teachers do it because they love to support students and rejoice with them as they have ‘a-ha’ moments or demonstrate a new skill they have mastered. They do it because they love to help build confident young people who are prepared for the future. They do it because they are committed to change and to helping build a better world.
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As I walk around campus, I am daily humbled by the dedication and hard work of the teachers at AISL. Our teachers pour themselves into their work every day and deserve a very large measure of all-too-rare appreciation and gratitude. Please do these fine professionals a favor and find a few moments to recognize the teachers who have had an important impact on your child.