Dear Teacher Who Knows,
When I asked about her first day back after the break she replied, “You know, our job really is to simply love kids well by assessing what they need and being a part of helping them get it. It really is as simple and as hard as that.”
As simple and as hard as that. Indeed, it is. In working with teachers across the district, I am continuously amazed by the depth to which teachers know their students. I have witnessed a teacher in a closet rummaging through old boxes of books with the door closed yell out with certainty, “Josh, I know you have Felicia’s pencil. I won’t tell you again to quit annoying her.”
Without even considering how the teacher could see him with the door shut, Josh returns the pencil and hangs his head in shame.
These are the teachers I call “the knowers.” They know who hasn’t had breakfast even without the signal of a growling stomach. They know who will make an 82 on this week’s vocabulary test. They know who needs at least ten minutes of the teacher’s undivided attention each day to feel valued, and they know who is picking a nose in class. Yesterday, my six- year-old nephew, Rhett was the culprit. “The worst is when the teacher catches you picking your nose and then she says, ‘Go wash your hands,' " he confessed on the way to ball practice yesterday.
Thank God for teachers who keep tabs on repeat nasal offenders and stress the importance of proper hand washing. If ever there was a year we needed good hygiene, it is now, but even more importantly, thank God for teachers who, by spring, have come to know every minute detail of every kid in class.
My mother has never read a parenting book, but I have heard her say the key to raising good kids is truly enjoying time with your children so much so that you know them better than they know themselves which sounds a lot like, “simply loving them and assessing what they need and helping them get it.”
In other words, it really is as simple as knowing kids well.
And that is so easy, it’s hard, isn’t it?
-CDB