Each week on Sunday I email a letter to the families of my 6th and 7th grade English students. In the letter I highlight the work we will be doing in the upcoming week, I celebrate the successes of students and suggest study tips as well as reminders about keeping up with daily reading and writing goals. Every once in a while, I might close with a need for our classroom. Most recently, I did just that; I ended the letter with a request for a donation of Kleenex or a tub of Chlorox wipes. As is usually the case, we’ve had an uptick in sickness following the Thanksgiving Break and those items can be very helpful. So I tucked that request in my weekly letter to families, and I didn’t really think about it again until the following week.
That next week, I was in the midst of a lesson when a teaching colleague came to my door with a rather large brown paper package. She noticed it in the mailroom and had kindly walked it down for me. Teachers are like that-they just can’t stop helping others. Anyway, the students and I were pretty excited, and I immediately ripped open the box to reveal its contents. Inside that box was an entire case of Kleenex boxes!!! Thirty boxes of Kleenex sent by an anonymous parent who had read my letter. I was ecstatic and said to the kids, “Do you know who sent these? Was it one of your parents?” They shrugged and simply suggested I break open a box as our classroom supply had been depleted. We actually put out two that day–one box up front and another in the back. Later in that same week another box arrived and in it were six tubs of Chlorox wipes. Every student clammored for a wipe to clean their desk and we marveled at all the dirt and yuck that came off on the cleaning wipes. We felt rich with our overabundance of Kleenex and freshly cleaned desks. It was simply glorious.
What was it about this donation that made it feel so extraordinary? It was its grandiosity. It wasn’t just one box of Kleenex, for which I would’ve been grateful. It was more than I asked for and really what was needed. It was knowing someone read my letter, noted my needs, and did more than was asked. A gesture this grand says, in no uncertain terms, you and your students deserve all of these supplies and more. A gesture this grand makes me feel heard, respected, and loved. Now, don’t get me wrong, all teachers treasure the small acts of kindness that are bestowed us. We have file folders that hold special notes and drawings from kids and letters of praise from parents or principals. But every once in a while, we need more. We need the power of the grand gesture.
It’s time for a grand gesture in public education. Like a knight in shining armor, the “powers that be” need to ride in and slay one of the evils driving intelligent, well-intentioned individuals from this important work–large class sizes! We need smaller classes. We need more teachers hired or returned to the classroom from their administrative work–teachers who want to stay in the classroom with kids. With this grand gesture of lowering class size, teachers will feel heard and valued. Teachers don’t need another meme celebrating their status as heroes. Instead they need advocates who fight for heroic change that supports the teaching profession. A change so grand it’s more than teachers could even have hoped.
moreteachingmoments 