Love in Teaching

Walk through the door of any classroom and you are bound to see student creations, pictures, letters, news clippings, school pictures, senior pictures, and so much more hanging from windows, walls, and even the ceilings. The signs of connections, personal bonds made within the four walls of a learning space. So many relationships both freshly made and forged with time. This is what fills my heart every year, what invigorates me as an educator.

A lot transpires across 180 days of school. The good, the bad, the ugly, and especially the heartwarming. Every classroom has the ability to sprout into its own unique little family and as educators, we hold the watering can. As Aeriale Johnson said, students idolize their teachers. They want to be noticed and sometimes it doesn’t matter what form that notice takes place in. Some days students will ask for attention in the hardest ways, but when the student who shouts “I HATE YOU” brings you a “flower” they found at recess, when the student who could only muster the courage to read aloud to you when you turned your back asks to read with you, when that shy student raises their hand to answer a question whole group for the first time, or when a past student writes you a letter or stops by your classroom just to say “hi,” you are brought back to the core of teaching. To me, the love in teaching.

Our students.

The children whose lives we are entrusted to make an impact in.

They are just growing in this world and we get to be so much more than teachers to them. We get 180 days to invest in them. To impart not only knowledge, but connection, support, safety, and yes, love. You grow attached to each other to the point you think no other class could possibly compare, no other group of students could ever fill your heart the same way. Then you start over every fall. Those new students burrow just as deep and take up just as much space as every other class before them. The love, joy, and heartbreak of working with children are what make teaching a passion.