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An Open Thank You Letter to Teachers
Jun 15, 2012
Dear Teachers,
Another school year is over, and there's a good chance you haven't been thanked for another year's hard work. That might actually be quite an understatement. Not only may you have failed to receive real appreciation for your work, your salary and benefits may have been cut while your hours were increased. You may have had more students to teach and more requirements to fulfill. You may not even be sure you'll be teaching next fall, depending upon budget cuts, even though you are a good and dedicated teacher.
It's possible that you have had a few students thank you, tell you that something you taught them, did for them, helped them learn was important and meaningful and changed them and inspired them and meant the world to them. It's also possible few students have taken the time to thank you, because they may be so stressed and frustrated by endless tests, long hours sitting in a chair learning things that don't seem relevant and important to them, or by a couple of other teachers, administrators or fellow students who've demoralized, bullied, scared, or bored them to tears making them hate school despite all you have done.
So if you haven't received the thanks you deserve, I want to thank you publicly now. And by "you" I mean those teachers who love to teach and do so with all their heart and soul to provide their students with what is important and necessary and inspiring and beautiful and meaningful and true and good and honest. I mean those teachers who care about kids and empower them and ignite their passions and help them achieve their big dreams. I mean those teachers who demand that their students question everything, including what they themselves teach, to ensure that they become the best critical and creative thinkers they can be. I mean those teachers who listen and care. I mean those teachers who are passionate about the subjects they teach and who cannot help but impart that passion.
I want to thank you for doing the most important work of all - educating the next generation. The real hope for our world, for creating peace, for solving our entrenched problems, for developing sustainable, humane, and healthy systems in technology, farming, economics, production, transportation, defense, and so on, lies with you - how well you provide your students with the knowledge, tools, and motivation they need to be able to create such systems. And you deserve extra gratitude for doing what you can to make your curricula serve such ends when standardized bubble tests demand something else entirely from you and often hinder the greater goals for a truly educated populace that you aspire to provide.
Thank you for being willing to work long hours for modest pay and minimal status when you surely could be making more money with less stress and greater prestige. Thank you for buying supplies when the school ran out of money and extending yourself far beyond your job description to help and mentor your students outside of the classroom. Thank you for trying to figure out every day how to manage the needs of so many children and for loving the ones who are hard to love because they make your days so difficult.
Thank you for modeling patience, honesty, courage, perseverance, wisdom, responsibility, generosity, and a commitment to lifelong learning to the best of your ability each and every day in your classroom.
Most of all, thank you for everything you have done and will continue to do to create a better future. There is no other profession that so directly shapes the world of tomorrow. Thank you for teaching.
Have a good summer.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
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Zoe Weil
Zoe Weil is the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (IHE), where she created the first graduate programs in comprehensive Humane Education linking human rights, environmental preservation, and animal protection offered online through an affiliation with Antioch University. She has given six TEDx talks including her acclaimed TEDx, "The World Becomes What You Teach," and is the author of seven books including "The World Becomes What We Teach: Educating a Generation of Solutionaries" and "Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life" (2009).
Dear Teachers,
Another school year is over, and there's a good chance you haven't been thanked for another year's hard work. That might actually be quite an understatement. Not only may you have failed to receive real appreciation for your work, your salary and benefits may have been cut while your hours were increased. You may have had more students to teach and more requirements to fulfill. You may not even be sure you'll be teaching next fall, depending upon budget cuts, even though you are a good and dedicated teacher.
It's possible that you have had a few students thank you, tell you that something you taught them, did for them, helped them learn was important and meaningful and changed them and inspired them and meant the world to them. It's also possible few students have taken the time to thank you, because they may be so stressed and frustrated by endless tests, long hours sitting in a chair learning things that don't seem relevant and important to them, or by a couple of other teachers, administrators or fellow students who've demoralized, bullied, scared, or bored them to tears making them hate school despite all you have done.
So if you haven't received the thanks you deserve, I want to thank you publicly now. And by "you" I mean those teachers who love to teach and do so with all their heart and soul to provide their students with what is important and necessary and inspiring and beautiful and meaningful and true and good and honest. I mean those teachers who care about kids and empower them and ignite their passions and help them achieve their big dreams. I mean those teachers who demand that their students question everything, including what they themselves teach, to ensure that they become the best critical and creative thinkers they can be. I mean those teachers who listen and care. I mean those teachers who are passionate about the subjects they teach and who cannot help but impart that passion.
I want to thank you for doing the most important work of all - educating the next generation. The real hope for our world, for creating peace, for solving our entrenched problems, for developing sustainable, humane, and healthy systems in technology, farming, economics, production, transportation, defense, and so on, lies with you - how well you provide your students with the knowledge, tools, and motivation they need to be able to create such systems. And you deserve extra gratitude for doing what you can to make your curricula serve such ends when standardized bubble tests demand something else entirely from you and often hinder the greater goals for a truly educated populace that you aspire to provide.
Thank you for being willing to work long hours for modest pay and minimal status when you surely could be making more money with less stress and greater prestige. Thank you for buying supplies when the school ran out of money and extending yourself far beyond your job description to help and mentor your students outside of the classroom. Thank you for trying to figure out every day how to manage the needs of so many children and for loving the ones who are hard to love because they make your days so difficult.
Thank you for modeling patience, honesty, courage, perseverance, wisdom, responsibility, generosity, and a commitment to lifelong learning to the best of your ability each and every day in your classroom.
Most of all, thank you for everything you have done and will continue to do to create a better future. There is no other profession that so directly shapes the world of tomorrow. Thank you for teaching.
Have a good summer.
Zoe Weil
Zoe Weil is the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (IHE), where she created the first graduate programs in comprehensive Humane Education linking human rights, environmental preservation, and animal protection offered online through an affiliation with Antioch University. She has given six TEDx talks including her acclaimed TEDx, "The World Becomes What You Teach," and is the author of seven books including "The World Becomes What We Teach: Educating a Generation of Solutionaries" and "Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life" (2009).
Dear Teachers,
Another school year is over, and there's a good chance you haven't been thanked for another year's hard work. That might actually be quite an understatement. Not only may you have failed to receive real appreciation for your work, your salary and benefits may have been cut while your hours were increased. You may have had more students to teach and more requirements to fulfill. You may not even be sure you'll be teaching next fall, depending upon budget cuts, even though you are a good and dedicated teacher.
It's possible that you have had a few students thank you, tell you that something you taught them, did for them, helped them learn was important and meaningful and changed them and inspired them and meant the world to them. It's also possible few students have taken the time to thank you, because they may be so stressed and frustrated by endless tests, long hours sitting in a chair learning things that don't seem relevant and important to them, or by a couple of other teachers, administrators or fellow students who've demoralized, bullied, scared, or bored them to tears making them hate school despite all you have done.
So if you haven't received the thanks you deserve, I want to thank you publicly now. And by "you" I mean those teachers who love to teach and do so with all their heart and soul to provide their students with what is important and necessary and inspiring and beautiful and meaningful and true and good and honest. I mean those teachers who care about kids and empower them and ignite their passions and help them achieve their big dreams. I mean those teachers who demand that their students question everything, including what they themselves teach, to ensure that they become the best critical and creative thinkers they can be. I mean those teachers who listen and care. I mean those teachers who are passionate about the subjects they teach and who cannot help but impart that passion.
I want to thank you for doing the most important work of all - educating the next generation. The real hope for our world, for creating peace, for solving our entrenched problems, for developing sustainable, humane, and healthy systems in technology, farming, economics, production, transportation, defense, and so on, lies with you - how well you provide your students with the knowledge, tools, and motivation they need to be able to create such systems. And you deserve extra gratitude for doing what you can to make your curricula serve such ends when standardized bubble tests demand something else entirely from you and often hinder the greater goals for a truly educated populace that you aspire to provide.
Thank you for being willing to work long hours for modest pay and minimal status when you surely could be making more money with less stress and greater prestige. Thank you for buying supplies when the school ran out of money and extending yourself far beyond your job description to help and mentor your students outside of the classroom. Thank you for trying to figure out every day how to manage the needs of so many children and for loving the ones who are hard to love because they make your days so difficult.
Thank you for modeling patience, honesty, courage, perseverance, wisdom, responsibility, generosity, and a commitment to lifelong learning to the best of your ability each and every day in your classroom.
Most of all, thank you for everything you have done and will continue to do to create a better future. There is no other profession that so directly shapes the world of tomorrow. Thank you for teaching.
Have a good summer.
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