a big shout out!

Did you know that today is "Teacher Appreciation Day"? Yea me neither, but thanks to my BH&G magazine I was quickly up to speed! If there is one thing that gets me a little fired up it's the phrase "teachers have it so easy. they work 9 months out of the year, work 7-3 and have weekends off. anyone could be a teacher!" Ugh. Seriously? I can honestly tell you that student teaching was BY FAR the hardest 4 months of life...so far!

I remember thinking "how hard can it be to teach 14 year olds about the food guide pyramid?" (that part was easy---teaching about the birds and the bees was another story!) I'm sure once you get the hang of it things might go smoothly and you really would be off work by 3 and not be busy with work on the weekends but man oh man I never had the chance to "leave work at work". There were ALWAYS meetings, papers to grade, meetings, bullies to deal with, meetings, other teachers who could care less, parents who could care less, kids who could care less-or even worse kids that care TOO much and cry about their A-.

I'm grateful that there are people out there that love teaching and helping others. I'm grateful for the teachers that I have had that pushed me to be better. I may not have liked it but I'm grateful for it. In high school my favorite teachers were the "cool" ones that let us leave class early or decided to skip a test here or there. I wish I would have tried a little (a lot) harder during those years but rest assured I made up for it in college!

At BYU I was struggling with Russian and my professor pulled me aside after class to give me the confidence I needed. She wasn't very kind about it but I walked away feeling so loved and important to her. She was teaching several classes and it would have been easy for her to just give me my C+ but instead she helped me to realize my strengths and abilities and I will never forget that. David and I still speak fondly of her.

I hope everyone realizes how lucky we are to have such wonderful examples...and a place to take our kids when we need a break;)