Honestly, I’d do it for free if I could pay the mortgage with baked goods

Today was the last day of Teacher Appreciation Week. All week, I was showered with wonderful tokens of appreciation from my students and their parents: candles, lotion, candies and chocolates, movie tickets, and gift cards galore to places like Target, Wahoo’s Fish Tacos, Baskin & Robbins, and Ralphs. As I gazed upon my big pile of lovely gifts, I really reflected on the real reason why I am a teacher:

To get AWESOME gifts.

JUST KIDDING!! Honestly, all those gifts were awesome and I was so honored to have them think of me and show me how much they care. The gifts that meant the most to me, though, were the handwritten cards and pictures that my students gave me. You may be thinking “Yeah right, Angela, you’d wrather have the Target gift card than a picture of a rainbow hand drawn by a 5 year old.” Honestly, that’s not true. That 5 year old is not just a five year old to me.  I build relationships with these kids everyday and I really feel like they’re a part of my family.  I am so honored to hear from their parents about how much they appreciate me and that their child goes home talking about how much fun I am and how much they like me.  I was even getting parents from other classrooms whom I’ve never met/never met me coming up to me and saying that their child talks about me constantly and thinks I’m funny.  THAT IS THE BEST COMPLIMENT!!!  When parents tell me that they can see what a difference I have made in their children’s lives, it just melts my heart to know that I’ve impacted their lives in a positive way.  I know that I am doing with my life what God intended for me to do, and just hearing them say “Thank you for all that you do” is enough.

….’course, these gift cards don’t hurt either….

To me, education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil’s soul. - Muriel Spark