The title caught your attention didn't it? I know as educators we don't earn very much and I also know this as a fact - that many of you have taken pay cuts from the industry to come into teaching to make a difference. So this post is not about the tangible rewards of how much we are worth, (in my opinion we are worth SOOOOO much more than we are currently paid) but about the intangible rewards. This is one of my all time favourite teacher stories and I must thank Elaine because I got this from her comments on the online course. It is not really "emo" but rather it gets you think on two fronts - how much are we really worth / can you really put a dollar value on what we do and more importantly, the incredible amount of power we yield as educators in the classroom. At the risk of a cliche - "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility. Enjoy the story and thanks Elaine for sharing it!
WHAT TEACHERS MAKE
The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life. One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued, "What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?" He reminded the other dinner guests what they say about teachers:"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."
To stress his point he said to another guest;"You're a teacher, Susan. Be honest. What do you make?"Susan, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness replied, "You want to know what I make?" "I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.I make a C+ feel like the winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor. I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall in absolute silence.""You want to know what I make?""I make kids wonder.I make them question.I make them criticize.I make them apologize and mean it.I make them write.I make them read, read, read.I make them show all their work in math and perfect their final drafts in English.I make them understand that if you have the brains, and follow your heart, and if someone ever tries to judge you by what you make, you must pay no attention because they just didn't learn."Susan paused and then continued.
"You want to know what I make?" 'I MAKE A DIFFERENCE.' What do you make?"
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5 comments:
Hey Mark! Glad you enjoyed it as much :p
Hahahha, yes my all time favourite story. When I ask myself why do I teach, I always like to go back to this story!
I used to watch my mom wake up every morning at 5.45 am to get to school. She was a teacher since she was 17 till she retired a few years ago.
She used to keep a little box on her office table for all the letters her students wrote to her. The little box grew to a big box, and then to a drawer.
Till today, years after her retirement, students still write letters to her, students still ask her out for tea and dinner, students still come up to her in the streets and greet her. Although these students are no longer students anymore. They are professionals young and old, in low level jobs as well as high paying ones. They come from all walks of life. Recently my mom asked me for some advice on a letter one of her students wrote. The letter was a long letter and highlighted the points of times when she had encountered my mom. She talked about her experiences after leaving school and going on to other schools and work. She talked about suicide and self mutilation, she talked about how her life was getting back on track, and most importantly she talked about her plans for the future.
I am glad to say that she remembered my mom as a teacher and her encouragement and that was what kept her going and what made her want to change and look to the future.
So how much do we make? Every student that we give hope to, every future that we help build, every word of encouragement that we give to a student we make something, it may not be money, but it is something.
Do dedicated teachers make much money? I don't think so, but do they make much? I guess I look at the incident with my mom, she just made a life worth living for one of her many students that I came to know about and that to me is alot.
Hi Dennis, that is a very poignant story. Is that why you became a teacher because you were influenced by your mum? So what did your mum do?
Not really. My whole family have been teachers at one point or the other. At this point all my siblings are working in schools :D
Thing from what I gathered was my mom didn't do anything except to keep encouraging the student though she was one of the more notorious ones in the school. I guess that was enough. Encouragement, something very lacking today.
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