Dear Honest Teacher,
All I can say is thank God for the teachers who tell the truth in love. The ones who don’t sugarcoat reality when they say, “Baby, you need help, and I’m here to offer it.”
They don’t water down expectations or tell students they are the best when they can clearly see they aren’t.
Years ago junior English was a critical year for career exploration. Students used research steps to decide upon a future career path. The unit was designed to end with a culminating essay where they outlined the earnings and responsibilities of a job in their chosen field. Imagine my surprise when a girl told me she wanted to grow up to be a paraplegic. “Do you mean a paralegal?” I quickly clarified. “Yeah, that thing,” she confirmed. That was a memorable crew of kids.
Sadly, I am afraid if we are not careful, false flattery and warm fuzzies are going to cause some well-meaning educators and parents to produce a generation of kids who wanted to be paralegals but became paraplegics instead, or as one teacher put it, “They can learn about life now in school or they can learn about it later from the school of hard knocks, but either way they will learn life is not always easy or fair.”
Some teachers have big hearts. In fact, many teachers have big hearts, but having a big heart is not crippling a kid for life by allowing him to use excuses as a crutch for poor performance. It also isn’t paralyzing kids in the name of love.
Having a big heart is telling people the truth in love and not turning a blind eye to learning deficiencies.
It’s saying, “I love you enough to help you become the best version of yourself.”
It’s a handwritten card that says, “I will never expect you or any student to be perfect, but I will continuously demand that you give your best effort.”
These are the teachers who are the real change agents. They are the ones who make the world a better place and make a parent like me ask, “What do I have to do to get my kid in that class?”
-CDB
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