Coming to Yap has forced me to face many realities
of life that we work so hard to cover up so we never have to see them until we
are confronted with some major catastrophe in life, most often the death of a
loved one. Most of these lead to the
great unanswerable questions that have been asked since the beginning of
mankind: Where do we come from? Where are we going? What happens when we die? However, while contemplating these can lead
to all sorts of wonderful, life-altering epiphanies laced with layer upon layer
of confusion – the realities that I find the most invigorating to explore are
the ones that I can directly relate to – the ones that I can change – the ones
that I can experience right here, right now, and I can use them to make this
world a happier place (don’t even get me started on the great question of what
is happiness… but, it is probably the most important question that all of us
can ever ask ourselves in this life.)
The
past few weeks, I have noticed how often we as human beings take some of the
most important people in our lives for granted.
The people who sacrifice so much for us – who dedicate their time,
energy, talents, and support – who help us grow – who encourage us to struggle
through challenges – who instill in us the drive to never accept anything but
our own personal best from ourselves.
These people are our teachers. I
have now officially been a teacher for 18 months, and the amount of respect and
gratitude that I have for all of the teachers who have believed in me – who
have had the patience to deal with me – who have shown me how to be a man – has
multiplied infinitely. I have
experienced wanting nothing more than for a struggling student to reach their
full potential – even if that full potential may be a 75% on a test. I have experienced the heart break of when
that same student seems to be trying their best to reach that goal, comes so
close, and then slips right back into their old habits. I have experienced the unbelievable
frustration of explaining a concept in about 74 different ways to try to make
something click in a student’s mind, and then out of nowhere, the student comes
up with a response that shows the most complete understanding of something that
moments before they could barely pronounce.
I have experienced the loving bond of trust that forms between a teacher
and a student, and I am slowly learning that the greatest part of that love is
the ability to let it go when the year is done so that the student and the
teacher can go on to share that love with others.
Teachers
never seem to get the respect, recognition, or gratitude that they truly
deserve. Want to argue with me? Let’s just take a look at a teacher’s salary
compared to.. well… to anyone else’s salary.
Think teachers have it easy having a work day that ends at 2:30, and all
of those glorious school vacations?
Well, yes – it would be nice to officially get out of school at 2:30 –
but since you are pretty much teaching all day, that means that you still have
all of the grading and prepping to do for classes. I am not writing this to gripe about things
that I am personally experiencing – I am writing this because I now recognize
just how underappreciated these incredible human beings we call teachers are. They change lives. They work selflessly day in and day out –
never giving up.
So
– for all of those teachers who I have had the blessed opportunity to be guided
by, to be molded by, to be challenged by – I would like to say from the bottom
of my heart – “Thank-you.” You have all
had an immense impact on me. You cared
enough about me to show up every day and try your best to make me into a better
person. I would just like you to know,
that even though I may not have shown it at the time, or never said it out
loud, that I care deeply about you, too.
“What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches.”
- Karl A. Menninger
I am truly touched after reading this. I am not a teacher, but I do plan on teaching at some point.. Teachers are under-appreciated indeed! Many thanks to you, and all the teachers out there.
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