LOVE AND LOGIC
Teacher Appreciation
On a personal note, I would like to apologize to the many teachers of my youth who put their heart and soul into trying to maintain order with me sitting in their classrooms. I wasn’t a downright malevolent child. I simply liked to keep things entertaining by continuously testing the sense of humor of my instructors. Despite my best efforts to the contrary, my teachers managed to see the good in me even when I couldn’t see it in myself. Great teachers are like that.
One way we can send a big thanks to educators is by helping our kids view them with great respect. A powerful strategy for achieving this goal involves allowing our kids to overhear us talking positively about their teachers. You’ve probably noticed your children’s eyes glazing over as you’ve tried to lecture them about some essential truth. In contrast, you’ve seen how closely they listen when they see that you’re trying to have a private conversation! Experiment with this:
At least twice a week intentionally let your children overhear you saying something positive about their teachers.
Do this for the rest of the school year.
The Best Gift for Teachers
All dedicated educators want to be appreciated for their hard work, and long hours. It’s great to be appreciated for the fact that we take classrooms full of kids with different needs, abilities, behaviors, and troubles and turn them into high-powered learning teams….
The best gift we can give them involves our own parenting. The most wonderful display of our appreciation is to send them students truly ready to be respectful, responsible, and eager to learn. No doubt this gift also benefits our children, who will rise to the top when equipped with such character attributes. In addition to letting our kids hear our positive comments about their teachers, here is a list of a few additional things you can do to help teachers help your kids succeed:
• Ensure that they are doing chores without reminders at home, so that they know how to do assignments without reminders at school.
• Allow very little time with technology, including video games, texting, surfing the web, watching videos, television, etc. These activities make it more difficult for our children to remain calm and content at school.
• Have family meals together, where you enjoy each other and talk about all the things you’ve learned during the day.
Want Your Child’s Teacher to Listen to You?
Years ago, we learned of two parents who called a teacher about something that happened in the teacher’s classroom. Here are the two ways that these parents started the conversation:
One of the mothers started by saying, “You need to handle the class in a better way!”
The other mother started by saying, “I’d like to share what I have heard about a problem in the class and get your thoughts on it.”
The opening statement of the first mother immediately put the teacher on the defensive and the conversation did not go well. The second mother did not create a hostile atmosphere and the conversation went well because the teacher did not feel like she was being attacked. Showing respect and courtesy to our teachers when we need to speak with them is another excellent way of showing how much we appreciate them and that we are truly thankful for what they do for our kids.
Dr. Charles Fay
