Those Who Inspire

Through my college experience, I have been given the same writing prompt four times now, asking me to write about the teacher I had growing up that inspired me to become a teacher as well.  Each of the four times I wrote about the same high school teacher I had. While this essay has been a great opportunity to reflect and set the baseline for my own standards as a future educator, what has been more influential on my personal and professional growth is the educators that I am currently surrounded with. They have been such an inspiration that I have risen the bar on my self tenfold (at least). I have been able to mold how I want to be as a teacher by the example that others have set.

One of my best girlfriends is a high school teacher and has been not only a huge supporter of mine since I started school but also a wonderful mentor! Besides teaching math and computer sciences, her experience also includes running a freshman mentoring program and being a dean.  In my first Intro to Education class I had to interview a teacher, and since I was taking the course over the summer she happily obliged to be my subject. She gave me such valuable information that was almost the opposite of everything I had known about teaching at the time. Since then she has really opened my eyes about topics such as common core math and standards-based grading. My experience, knowledge, and opinion of such topics at that time had been limited to what I heard in the mom community, so to hear from an educator the pros and cons to these, as well as the implication on student's learning had been so beneficial. One of the greatest ways she has helped me was to really help me see how amazing, talented and hardworking the majority of our youth is. Not that I had really doubted this, but when you constantly hear the negatives of this 'millennial generation' and the current social media challenges that are taking place (for example the Tide pod challenge) its easy to get sucked up in the biased viewpoints and not realize that this negative spotlight is only highlighting a small population.

My daughter is an eighth grader and cheerleader.  I have seen her cheerleading coach dedicate nine months of her life to her team- including summer practices, practices five days a week after school, weekend competitions, multiple basketball games each week and overnight state trips. (On top of her full time teaching job!) She has led them to be one of the top teams in the state and has provided so many experiences that many junior high girls will never have. She has not only taught the girls the skills required to be a good cheerleader, but she has shown them what hard work, dedication, and teamwork looks like. Over the past two years, my daughter has built her confidence, gained new friendships and a nice handful of medals and trophies. These are soft and indispensable life skills that without her coach's passion may not have been taught.

Besides these wonderful women have been all the phenomenal educators that I have met and gotten to know through my children's schools (which I talked about more here). I have seen firsthand the educators (many of whom have their own families at home) giving up their extra time once the school day is over to run clubs and activities, tutor, and coach sports teams. They are the ones who show up at 7:30 am to give band instruction and stay later in the evening for chorus practices.  They spend their Thursday nights scooping ice cream at PTO events, Friday nights running junior high activity nights, Saturdays volunteering at community events held at their school and Sundays attending cub scout banquets to watch their students move up in rank. The educators who know that school isn't just for academics but experiences, character development and the second home to many students who need it. The ones who make connections with their students, take an interest in them and be proud of all their accomplishments still years after they have left their classroom.  I have seen the teachers who respond to my emails at 9pm and the ones who only speak positively of their students. The teachers who don't give up on the challenging students and the ones who are absolutely exhausted by their special needs students but still show them the compassion and love they deserve.

So while I have written multiple times about the one teacher that inspired me in high school, it has been all these other wonderful educators that I have had the pleasure to know that have kept me inspired and have helped with my own growth. They are the ones who are the epitome of what a teacher looks like and have made me confident that I am entering the right career. I am appreciative not only for how they have helped my own development but how they continuously, day in and day out, make an impact on the lives of their students.  They go unrecognized and unappreciated for all their hard work but every day they give their students their very best.