“A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others.” ~Author Unknown
These days teachers come under fire from all sides. They’re pressured by bureaucrats, abused by parents; disrespected and ridiculed by their own students. They work longer hours under more stressful, thankless conditions than anybody in any other business I can imagine. And, on those rare occasions when they’re forced to stand up for their own needs they’re often shouted down with scorn.
How dare they be so selfish!
“Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.” ~Jacques Barzun
Some who become teachers can’t hack it, and how can you blame them? Overworked, underpaid, hardly ever appreciated, they continually reach into their own pockets to buy school supplies and to decorate and liven up drab classrooms in the hope that they can excite and ignite a fire in their students, many of whom would rather be anywhere else.
Those who do manage to hang on grow. The good ones grow large enough to find a higher regard for themselves and humanity. They become leaders. The occasional great teacher grows large enough to inspire greatness in others.
“The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.” ~Khalil Gibran
This week my daughter-in-law, Emily Williams, was named one of sixteen Teachers of the Year for all of Los Angeles County. That’s sixteen teachers out of eighty (80) thousand!
To say we’re proud of her would be an understatement of the magnitude of saying it’s nice to be alive.
I could write pages of praise for Emily and the extraordinary, loving family that raised and still nurtures her. I could enumerate her higher qualities until I simply exhaust my own limitations in recognizing them and still she would have more. When looking for the right words to express gratitude for teachers even Shakespeare came up wanting:
“I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks.” ~William Shakespeare
It’s enough for me to know that Emily is the perfect wife for my son, a truly wonderful mother for my grandson and a teacher of such high standing that she has earned the adoration of her administrators, her peers and her charges.
But what blows me away is how she does it in the face of all that pressure, abuse and disrespect. How she does it and why.
She is simply head over heels in love with life. She possesses an eternal wellspring of idealism and hope. She never thirsts for a dream.
And while the rest of us open our eyes each morning and think, “I have to go to work,” our Emily explains, with perfectly ingenuous wonder:
“I get to.”
Congratulations, Emily. Keep on keeping on. Our kids need you. We need you.
As a video producer for the California Lottery for 14 years I interviewed and documented winners of multi-million dollar prizes, people who had won modest prizes and dozens of teachers who were honored as exceptional educators on the Lottery’s TV show. Without question, the richest of all those people were the teachers. No matter how hard I tried, my camera and microphone could never seem to capture all of the power and magnificence that existed in the classrooms of these incredible people who have the privilege and duty of melding young minds.
Emily is indeed in rarified company and though I have not had the honor of meeting her, through those who have been so honored before, I have a very real appreciation for what she does and why she does it.
Thank you for being a teacher, Emily.