These guys are my world. I know the "average" kids get lost in your over crowded classrooms and you get distracted with kids that need extra attention, but please treat them with compassion and shower them in your attention. Treat them with every kindness you can muster. Treat them like they are exceptional. Because they are.
Dear School Teachers;
I want to send a friendly letter to let you know I am on your side. I want to make sure that we understand each other. I haven't met the vast majority of you but I love you just the same. Anyone who willingly volunteers to spend a lifetime working with children, often times without adequate resources, little respect and never adequate pay has my utmost respect, admiration and love. I get the challenges in the teaching profession. I know you get harassed by parents who feel their child's struggles are caused by you. I get that your administrators are often times not very supportive. It's devastating when school leaders fall short in leadership skills to help teachers when we live in a time that leadership is paramount. I know the pains of standardized testing. Lord knows you are not paid your worth. I get it. I get you. I was once you.
I have seen you time and time again go the extra mile. I have seen you swallow up my child in your capable arms and lay kisses all over her teary cheeks from a skinned knee. I watched as you sifted through trash in the lunchroom with my little girl because she lost her tooth in the morning and accidentally threw it out with her lunch tray. And you, bold trash digger, checked your ego and the odds of finding the tooth, at the door and came to the rescue. Like you always do. I watched you put your own money down in the lunchroom when a student didn't have enough money to buy a lunch. The boys' bill was past due and the school administration thought it would be a good idea to throw food away in an attempt to make a deterrent model out of him. I saw your classroom light on from the street well into the night. I have seen you talk down the angriest of parents and I have seen you inspire the most cynical of principals and politicians. Of course you are an amazing educator. College taught you how to teach kids. But it's the other stuff that I find most impressive. I see the magic in all of you. I didn't see it in myself when I was a teacher. So I thought I would tell you. Because I know you. And I know you don't believe me. You are wonderful. You are graceful. You are doing an amazing job. Your dedication is not lost on me. I love you. And I will keep telling you this until it sinks in!
Now, here is the schtick! I know you have over-crowded class sizes and it's hard to treat each child as an individual. It's much easier to address one group one time. I know you have taken a series of classes on "classroom management". I took those classes too. But the premise in classroom management is gearing the group to an average rather than the individual; the exceptional. I want for you to throw all that out. Classroom Management is garbage. I want you to do what you do best. Shower my kids in your love. And if this creates chaos or if the standardized tests don't measure the progress you make; so be it. I hate those tests anyway and I know you do too! And if we lose federal funding because we flunked those stupid tests, know that I will be writing for every grant available. I will shake the money trees on Capitol Hill. I will bake up cookies for bake sales and wash cars, sell cookie dough and coupon books until the cows come home to make up the difference in funding. I won't leave you hanging friend. Do not teach in fear. Teach like you do; in love and I will pick up any pieces needed.
I don't like the first day of school. I know it's not your favorite either. I know many of you leave your own kids to go to work on the first day of school. I know it's hard. I want you to know that it's just as hard for me to send my kids away on the first day of school! I usually spend the day crying. My kids are only kids for like a heartbeat and it kills me to give them up for six hours a day for 180 days a year. I love them so much. I don't rejoice on the first day of school like the Target advertisement would have you believe. I just want you to know that in spite of all the hardships associated in teaching which I totally get; you are are one lucky person, because you get to be with my kids. No offense but I would rather they were home with me. I am entrusting my most precious thing: my love, my life, my kids to you for nine months. I could teach them the entire curriculum at home and frankly, that would be my preference. But I know they learn a lot more than just curriculum at school from you. I want you to take the time to get to know my kids. You will be so happy you did. Because they are awesome. I want you to teach them how to compete and be competitive but also how to be compassionate. I want you to treat my kids as the exceptional individuals they are. I want you to know, not just in your brain, but in your heart that each one of those 25 faces in your class this year is the most important face in the world. Each face may discover the cure to the cancer you'll contract in 30 years, find the solution to global warming, broker peace in Israel, be president, teach your own children or grandchildren. Please, I am begging you, handle them with all your love, like your life depended on them, like they are your world. Because they are my world. And I just want to make sure that you get that.
Thank you for all that you do.
Annie Payne
Theo and MJ's mom
