An Ode To Teachers

For the past few years, come August, dread would cause my stomach to knot. Certain cues would make the knot get tighter.  For instance, my summer league soccer games would start getting earlier and earlier as dusk arrived earlier and earlier. Every morning darker dawn skies would greet Kya and me. Instead of hearing chirping birds, we’d be dive-bombed by pesky bats during our 5 AM walks.

However, this summer, the dread is gone. Instead, I’m experiencing different feelings as I take the leap toward building The Better Coach (TBC) into a full time business. But that’s not the point of this article. I’ll unravel those knots at another time. 

The point of this article is to praise teachers.

Teachers, and all school employers, deserve way more praise than this blog article, buried in the depths of the internet, can ever bestow on you.

But, I’m going to give it a shot anyway…

It’s often been said that teachers are the real superheroes in our world. And they are. We heard that even more during the pandemic. And they were. For the past 3 years, I was on the firing lines with those heroes.

Which is why it makes sense to me that according to the American Educational Research Foundation, teachers are 40% more likely to experience anxiety compared to health care workers. Twenty percent more than office workers. And thirty percent more than professions like farming and military.

Teaching is so much more than lesson planning, showing up to teach and grading. There’s also disciplining students, having difficult conversations with them and their parents, impacting them whether it’s positive or negative, and an endless amount of pointless meetings.

For teachers, the school day doesn’t end when the school day ends. Teachers have to make time in their work day during free/prep periods to meet with students, respond to concerned parents and administration and attend pointless meetings, rather than use that time to lesson plan and grade.

On top of all of that, teachers watch your kids all day. Kids are tough. I’m not a parent so I can’t speak from personal experience, but I imagine that raising children is one of the most challenging things ever. 

Now imagine dealing with 10-20+ kids at once.

According to Schools That Lead, teacher burnout is a crisis. And 90% of teachers agree that this is a very serious problem. They say that teaching is “one of the most time- and emotion-consuming professions.”

The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health did a meta analysis on teacher burnout and found burnout rates between 25% to 75%, and stress rates up to 87%. The author concluded that “teaching is challenging and yet one of the most rewarding professions, but several factors correlate with stress, burnout, anxiety, and depression among teachers.”

The good news is that, as the same article stated, awareness is the first step toward fixing the problem. Fortunately, schools are starting to address it by taking care of their teachers.

Depsite all the pressure and anxiety that comes with their profession, teachers make the time to make a difference in the lives of the children they teach.  A note or comment on an assignment can fill an uncertain student with confidence. A 5-minute after class conversation can be a life changing moment for a student. I know, because I’ve seen it.

If my tenure as a teacher taught me anything it’s that teachers teach because they love to teach.

Because they want to make a difference in the lives of children. There is no thank you that’s big enough for their sacrifice and dedication.

But, like I said earlier, I’m going to give it a try.

As I leave the world of teaching to pursue my dream of building my own sports performance company, I want to thank my colleagues whose humor, light heartedness, support and friendship (despite all of the shit you put up with) helped me make it through the past few years. 

To all the teachers out there, thank you.

Thank you for all that you do. For every note, comment, gesture, lesson and word that goes unnoticed, thank you. 

Thank you for watching everyone’s kids all day every day, (even when you want to strangle them but restrain yourself by somehow mustering up a superhero, godlike amount of patience).

Thank you for creating the future of the world.

Thank you, teachers. Have a wonderful 2024-2025 school year.