In less than a week my youngest child will finish her elementary school days. This feels like a major milestone since we’ve had at least one child in an elementary setting for the past eleven years. I’m not sure there’s another building where as much physical, social, and emotional growth takes place. The same tiny kids who start school carrying backpacks bigger than their bodies, unable to read or tie their shoes, morph into tweens who are capable of writing papers and leading school assemblies.
I’m excited for the ages and stages to come, but I will miss the innocence and playfulness of these years we are leaving behind. Dr. Seuss famously reminds graduates of the many exciting places they’ll go. But just as important are the places we’ve been and the impact those places have on who we will become.
As this era comes to an end, I share an updated letter to the teachers who have walked alongside us all these years.
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Dear elementary teachers,
I am going to miss you. For many years now, you have been an extension of our parenting, a frequent topic of our car conversations, and an investor in the lives of our children.
While all jobs have their challenges, I think it takes a particularly special skill set to work with young children. I’m amazed at your willingness to expose yourself to illness, injury, and insult. You bravely walk into a germ-infested workplace, manage children with widely varying academic and emotional needs, comfort kids when they’re upset, monitor lunchroom and bathroom shenanigans, and triage playground injuries.
I’ve heard stories about some of the most trying situations you have to handle. When my oldest was in kindergarten she hopped in the car at pickup and announced, “Mary ate too many goldfish and threw up today. Her throw up was orange, and it took three men and a big machine to clean it up!! The teacher says she might have to get a new rug.” (The rug would be the least of my worries).
More recently, my 5th grader couldn’t wait to tell me how a fellow classmate of hers drank the liquid in his ice pack and had to visit the clinic to make sure he didn’t ingest something toxic. Everyone clapped when he returned to class alive. Who drinks an ice pack? Well, sometimes your students do.
Remarkably, incidents of this sort don’t faze you. Bloody knees and noses, loose teeth, smashed fingers, broken arms, black eyes, pink eyes, lice, math cubes in nostrils (this is another true story)… you see it all.
I’m thankful for your stamina.
One of our girls had some anxieties that plagued her throughout her elementary years. When you became aware, you instinctively knew how to help her. You sat with her when she was nervous about riding a bus. You greeted her in the hallway with a calm reassurance when she was tearfully fearful of catching the stomach bug raging through the school. You put your arm around her and gently encouraged her when she was anxious about giving a speech in front of the class.
I’m thankful for your compassion.
I know how much energy my children have and how that energy multiplies when they’re in a group. But I’ve watched you lead hordes of children on field trips to a farm, to a factory, in museums, at the zoo, even in a cave. You hop on a bus with sixty kids {many of whom have never ridden on a bus before and are literally bouncing off the seats with excitement}. You’re calm, collected, and interested in what the kids are learning even though you did this exact same field trip last year and every other year before this one. You even take the whole grade to a camp where they hold snakes, swing from the trees, and sleep in primitive cabins that may or may not have an attached bathroom.
During the pandemic, when all of us were on the brink of losing our sanity, you quickly learned new skills and filmed yourselves to bring lessons into our home by way of technology. I’ll never forget hearing you read Horace and Morace But Mostly Dolores to a virtual classroom of 2nd graders on their iPads. And you did it knowing parents were listening in! You also literally brought school to us with several visits to our driveway—once playing hopscotch in the rain to reinforce those maddening multiplication facts.
I’m thankful for your enthusiasm for learning outside the classroom.
My girls have shared with me the questions they or their friends have asked you at school. Of course they have inquiries about science and math, and everyone wants to know what they’re having for lunch or when they’ll be going outside. But it’s their curiosity about your personal life that is insatiable.
They need to know how old you are, your relational status, your family history, your medical history, where you live, where you used to live, and why you wear the earrings you do. I know you have fielded personal questions like, “Why aren’t you married yet?” or “Why do you wear that shirt so much?” or “Did you know you’re twenty years older than my mom?!” Answering hundreds of questions of this nature requires patience, grace, and tact.
I’m thankful for your resilience.
I love to laugh, but I’m not good at being silly. I’ve heard the songs you sing about everything from the days of the week to the names of the U.S. presidents. I’ve heard about how you’ve gone on “bear hunts” and searched the school for a missing gingerbread man. You wear scrubs and convert your classroom into an operating room to teach the “Order of Operations.” I’ve also seen you dress up like Johnny Appleseed, a 100-year-old, a penguin, and a flapper… like it’s just another day.
I’m thankful for your playfulness.
Many weekdays our mornings are hurried and harried. There is bickering and crying over everything from missing socks to missing math books. Unfortunately, there have been days when I drop my kids off having hurt their feelings or not having said a kind word all morning. But you often turn our bad start around in an instant. I’ve heard you greet my girls with a smile and a “good morning” day after day.
I imagine there are times when you have to set aside your own feelings—stresses at home, grief, a headache, a backache, a heartache—whatever the case, you push through these issues because a roomful of kids are counting on you to be upbeat and more interested in them than your own affairs. And so, you are.
I’m thankful for your grit.
It’s one thing to love your own children. I would lay down my life for any of my three at any moment. It’s quite another thing, though, to love children who are not your own. Yet I have been in your classroom, read emails sent early in the morning or late at night, and talked with you at length at conferences. And I sense you feel real love for these kids in your care. You wear their handmade gifts. You display their artwork on your fridge at home. You come to their ballgames and baptisms on your weekends. You learn personalities, strengths, and weaknesses. Sometimes you see potential in our kids that we as parents aren’t noticing.
In recent years it has become normal for you to practice lockdown and “active shooter” drills. And it’s proven over and again that you instinctively act as heroes to calm and protect the children entrusted to your care.
You encourage and speak truth in special ways. You know “your” kids, you think about them, pray for them, and challenge them to be their best selves in your classroom, which spills out into who they are at home and in the real world.
I’m thankful for your love.
Since my firstborn was very young, I’ve clung to the proverb that says “it takes a village to raise a child.” And each one of you is, or has been, a very important part of our village. I have needed you. They have needed you. We have needed you on our team.
So thank you for heeding the call to serve in the classroom and on the battlefield for the hearts and minds of our kids. You have become a part of our family and a part of our story. As our elementary chapter closes, I pray the investment you have made—and will continue to make—in all these young lives comes back to bless you abundantly.
With love,
A grateful mom
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