Font used: Please Write Me A Song
I know, I know, I'm super selfish and always asking for something, but I promise this isn't for me!
I'm hoping that I can count on you guys to help cheer up and cheer on a first year teacher at my school. She's fresh out of college. She moved here to Memphis just for the job and is a 13 hour drive away from her family. I think she's going to grow into an amazing teacher, but that first year is always the hardest and she's teaching fifth grade. FIFTH GRADE! That alone takes the roughness of the first year and multiplies it by about 5,000!
She gets to school early and stays late. She brings kids to my room every Friday to read to my students. Sometimes she will spend her lunch break in my class observing because she says my students cheer her up
I went to her room before the students came in right before Fall Break started and found her sitting there in the dark with the door locked crying. We were about to leave for a week long break and while I was practically turning cartwheels in the hallway she was still so overwhelmed she broke down and cried.
I remember those days! I remember thinking that I had made a mistake and becoming a teacher was a stupid thing to do. No one cares about us.....No one respects us.....AND.....no one will ever pay us the amount of money we deserve for the work that we do!
Heck, I still have those days! I'll probably have one of those days on the Monday that we go back to school and if I'm going to have one of those days, I know that she will!
I know that there is going to be a change at my school next month and I'm hoping that it will help to make her job easier. I've even spoken up on her behalf, but I'm a nobody, so I don't know if it will make a difference or not.
If this change doesn't happen the way I hope it will, I'm afraid that she'll give up. I'm afraid that she will become one of the millions of teachers that leave this profession every year. They say that one out of every 10 new teachers quit after their first year. I completely understand why they leave, but I don't want her to be that one!
I don't want her to quit before she's given herself a chance to realize the potential she has to be a world class teacher. I don't want her to give up on something that she worked so hard to qualify for before she realizes the potential she has to make someones life better. I don't want her to give up on herself before she realizes that even if she only reaches one student, THAT student may be the one who changes the world. I don't want her to give up on herself before THAT student realizes how much he/she needs her. I don't want her to give up even though the pay is bad and fifth graders can be disrespectful and no matter how hard she works the politicians will always say it isn't hard enough. I don't want her to give up before she has the chance to hear THAT student say, "Thank you!"
I just don't want her to give up!
Would you guys please send her a card or a note or something to cheer her on? Maybe you could share a story about a teacher that made a difference in your life or in your child's life. Maybe you could just make her smile.
I know you guys won't let me down, because you never do!
Thank you so much!!!!!
Miss Lukow
Levi Elementary School
135 W. Levi Road
Memphis, TN 38109
