Teacher Appreciation Week

Teachers are the soul of our society.

I spend my days appreciating and reflecting on all that teachers do for us, so Teacher Appreciation Week seems a little bit redundant.

Then again, there is never a bad time to let teachers know they are appreciated.

Because teachers are the soul of our society.

Children spend more time with teachers in a given day than they do with parents. Teenagers only spend more time with phones than they do with teachers. Teachers’ roles in their students’ lives go far beyond the subjects they are responsible for teaching.

And the most important job of a teacher is to enhance the humanity of their students. Empathy, connection, emotional honesty, ownership, self-worth: these are encouraged, enhanced, and quietly built in classrooms across our country every single day.

If a soul is the thing that defines our humanity, then teachers are the soul of our society.

Thank you, teachers, for making our society more human. For looking ahead – not to tomorrow, but a generation ahead – and helping to build a better world. For taking so seriously the responsibility of having unfinished humans in your presence and helping to finish them.

Thank you for being the soul of our society.