Dear Teacher
This morning at the end-of-year party for my 3-year-old Yaakov, I was thinking what a handful Yaakov is for me…
And then I took a good look at his teacher, Ganenet Ruchama, who spends 6 hours a day dealing with the shenanigans of not just one Yaakov, as I do, but rather an entire class of 3-year-olds.
With so much dedication. And so much love. And so much idealism about educating the next generation of Jews, despite the challenges she faces every single day.
This week and last, every day I’ve been attending an end-of-year party for one of my children– sort of like those “Europe in 7 Days” “It’s Tuesday, this must be Italy” “It’s Wednesday, this must be Slovakia” tours— this week I’ve been saying “It’s Saturday night, this must be my daughter’s high-school graduation!” “It’s Tuesday, this must be my daughter’s junior-high-school graduation!” “It’s Thursday, this must be my youngest daughter must be graduating kindergarten!”
And at these parties I’ve been thinking a lot about how rewarding this profession can be at times, but how challenging and frustrating it must be so much more often.
And I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to all the teachers who worked so hard this year. Who make it their mission in life to help our children fulfill theirs.
in the past 2 years, i have been zoche to work as a substitute assistant morah in my daughters’ pre-school. even though i have been a mother of many for 26 years, i don’t think i really appreciated the level of patience and perseverance of our children’s morahs. i have watched these professionals handle the most challenging situations with poise and love. and patience. tons of patience.
to all our Morahs (and Rebbes), thank you for giving of yourselves and may you be blessed with only revealed good and blessings of abundance.
wow, thanks for sharing the inside scoop tamar
Amen!!! These women are my HEROES.
Thanks! Im so proud to be a teacher And a jewish Mom!
As a teacher, I treasure the personal notes written to me by parents over the years. One of the cutest was written by a 5 year old – You are my best teacher! If we don’t model patience, how can we expect our students to react to each other patiently? We are trying to instill the value of using words rather than hands to settle differences etc. It is too bad that the level of pay does not reflect the importance to the community and future of Klal Yisroel that our jobs entail. It would be too big a burden on the parents, but outside funding would be nice…. I don’t regret my choice of career – I have been a teacher over 40 years but it is sad to think that movie stars and sports heroes earn major bucks and what they do is of what intrinsic value?