Great Day of Gratitude

Since this is the first I'm hearing about this fantastic idea, I am going to have to send something along with Ethan tomorrow!  Obviously, since I'm a crafty type, I'm going to have to whip up something fairly quickly... Hmmm.  For a teacher... a book cover/tote, perhaps?  This is an idea that I've been playing around with, but haven't necessarily gotten to yet.  Yep.  I think that is what I will do.

Over the past few years that we have been at Clackamas Elementary, all of the teachers and staff have been great.  We understand that they are super busy, and yet they still take the time to answer the calls, emails, and notes that they receive on a daily basis.  Not only do they do they deal with our rugrats every day, but then they go home and have to deal with their own!!  Every grade and age presents it's own challenges, and I'm sure the individuals who teach Kindergarten say, "I don't know how those teachers deal with the high schoolers!" but then, I'm sure that the High School teachers say the same thing about the Elementary level teachers too!  Hurray for Teacher Appreciation Week.  Of course, that being said, at the same time, there are also the lunch ladies, maintenence/janitorial staff, school nurses, and perhaps most importantly - the office staff, because really, without them the schools simply wouldn't function (That means YOU, BARB CHILTON)!

I have a few teachers that I look back on fondly, and for different reasons.  There were the ones that were so incredibly sweet and kind that you couldn't wait to go to school... there were the crazy creative ones (that were let go from the Catholic school you attended for being TOO creative - shame, really, Ms. Russo was fantastic)... there were the ones that pushed and pushed and pushed you to the point where you thought you were going to strangle them and then suddenly, it clicked that they were just pushing you because they knew you had too much potential to waste...  There are also a few teachers that my oldest son, who is now in third grade, has had that have just been phenomenal, everyone at the Early Learning Center for preschool, as well as Jenni Hutteball that he had last year for second grade.

The other side of this, and perhaps these teachers are slightly less recognized, because a lot of people don't think of them as being teachers... I'm talking about the various sports coaches that were in our lives as kids, and are now in our children's lives.  Over the years, parents have become okay with yelling at umpires, refs, opposing coaches.  Perhaps instead of doing this, we need to support the coaches that the kids have, and just sit back with our hot dogs and enjoy the game...

I know that I am grateful for the teachers that I have had, and hope that my kids can look back years from now and say the same... Check out PBS Kids Supersisters and see what others are doing to participate in the Great Day of Gratitude!

REI and Summer Reading

After Xavier broke the second pair of sunglasses in the last month... I headed to REI to see if they had something made out of titanium, with spring hinges and indestructable lenses. Alas, no luck with the entire list of requirements, but we did run into one of the teachers from my older son's school.

This couldn't have happened at a more perfect time, as we had an argument earlier in the day about how much reading Ethan hasn't done over the summer. Well... the dear Mr. Rubin was kind enough to take time out from his REI sales duties to explain to Ethan that yes, indeed, he did still need to read over the summer, and that's how he would get a head start with third grade in the fall compared to some of the other kids that will be in his class. Now, after having that argument earlier in the day, Ethan wasn't necessarily the MOST receptive to the conversation, but because Mr. Rubin is a "tech guy" and Ethan is really into computers and science, he has now been reading for the last two days and has already finished a book. YEAHHHH! I feel as though I should swing by REI and thank him. :) Sadly, he won't be continuing at Ethan's school in the fall, and will be changing to a new elementary schoool. Ethan was really hoping to get him at some point... whereas, I was hoping that we could keep his second grade teacher, Mrs. Hutteball, FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER (although she's probably glad to be rid of him... :))

While I was so excited to get this little bit of help from him, it made me kind of sad to realize that our teachers are working two and three jobs to make ends meet, and how underappreciated they really are... it is awful that some of these CEOs make millions and millions of dollars, and while yes, I'm sure at one point they worked very hard to get where they are, now their time is spent on islands and vacations, while the people that are responsible (unless they have private tutors, because even at a lot of private schools teachers are vastly underpaid) for educating their children are struggling to make ends meet. The teachers that are working with the most challenged children, whether it be financially or academically are shoved by the wayside, and who knows... perhaps one of those kids winds up being the next president... all because a teacher who was moonlighting at REI or a coffee shop told them that yes, they need to read over the summer.