you're always on my mind

Growing up in a family that has an abundance of teachers in it, I have heard just about every possible joke and/or criticism that implies that teachers are teachers because they get summers off and only need to work nine to ten months out of the year. Now that I am a teacher myself, I know that this is not the way things actually work. You see, my students are always on my mind. Throughout the school year I am thinking about the students that I am actively teaching, and now that it is summer I am always thinking about the students that will be in my class and how I may best teach and support them on their academic journeys.

Teaching is not a job. It is a lifestyle. When you teach you are always thinking about the lives of those that enter your classroom and the impact that you will have on them. And, if you are a teacher for the same reason that I think most are - for the kids - you want that impact to be positive. To be motivational. To be nurturing. To be life changing. You want those that you work with to feel like they are doing all that they can do and to help them to understand that they can still do more. You want them to know that they can achieve their dreams if they set their minds and hearts to it. As my sixth grade teacher once told me, "Always reach for the stars, someday you just may reach them." This thought has shaped me as an individual and now as a teacher it has become a part of my philosophy. I want my students walking away at the end of the year knowing that they are incredible individuals and that they have the potential to reach the stars.

My students are always on my mind. This summer as I have walked through thrift stores and around garage/yard sales I cannot help but think about how a new-to-my-class book might impact the learning of one student, or about how a new puzzle may help my kinders learn problem-solving skills, or about how different manipulatives will fit in perfectly with a unit that I am designing or in the development of foundational skills such as letter and/or number recognition. I may have stepped away from my classroom for two months, but I never stepped away from my students.

With this in mind, if you are one of those that likes to share those aforementioned jokes and/or criticisms about why teachers teach, I would like you to think before you speak. We teach for the kids. Possibly the very same kids that you are raising in your household. We don't teach for summers off. We don't teach for built in fall/winter/spring breaks. We don't teach for the money (clearly). We teach for the kids. And because of that, they are always on our minds (or at least they are always on this teacher's mind).