just in case you don't know a teacher personally...

This came in my email a couple of days ago. I thought it appropriate at this time of year when most teachers are going the extra 3 miles for kids who need, especially those who can't or are afraid to speak up for themselves. Here at my school we arranged to help 11 families in the community through food drives and staff generosity. Our guidance teacher and SIW (student intervention worker - like a TA but for the "behaviour issues" rather than the academic concerns) delivered boxes of food and toys to 6 of those families today, and found it to be an experience that was equally rewarding and saddening.

I'm getting off the soapbox now. It's just helpful to take a step back from our concerns of lacking whatever we feel we may be lacking, and taking a good look around at what we have, which I have to think for most of us, is an incredible amount. I know I complain and often feel pressure of not enough, be it money, time, whatever, but I also know that I have plenty, and that if I was lacking in anything necessary, I have people who would line up to help me.

This article isn't really as depressing as my lead in! I promise I'll post a cheerier something before Christmas!

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This is a copy of a “Talkback” email read by Terry Seguay on CBC Information Morning on November 30. The title is “...and we teach”.

“My name is Gail Fellows-DeGrace and I teach Kindergarten and Music at Donald Fraser Elementary School in Plaster Rock. I heard the CBC piece about the Salisbury school club organized to help students learn to tie sneakers. Many teachers probably had my reaction, “that’s a great idea”, while other listeners reflected that it’s a sad state when schools have to do so many of the things parents used to. But, it’s all in a day’s work for the elementary teachers that I have had the privilege to meet and work with across our province.

We bandage knees, pull out teeth, go home with vomit stained pants, wipe noses and the occasional rear end, administer antibiotics, carry anaphylactic needles, pick nits, squish live lice, peel diarrhea-stained underwear off kids too sick to take care of themselves, cover them up on a sick bed because there is no sitter ...and we teach.

We make sandwiches for those with empty lunch boxes, drive other people’s children to and from activities, scrounge for countless sneakers ,snowsuits and boots for those without , make sure children in need will have food for this holiday season ...and we teach.

We laugh with children because their innocence is contagious, we shout inside when a child has a long- awaited success; we counsel the fearful, the broken, the angry and the bruised, weep with children for their sorrow and often fear about their tomorrows, we beg social services to step in when we know they cannot; our hearts break many, many times ...and we teach.

Our regular every day school situations often demand that we take on duties of the school nurse, the psychologist, the social worker and the speech therapist; we organize clubs for those who never do homework, coach intramurals to encourage children to be active; introduce the concepts of rules, routines and manners to those who are unruly ...and we teach.

We do whatever the situation demands each day, we do it as well as we can because we care enough to hope we make a difference ...and... we also teach children how to tie their shoelaces.

Gail Fellows-DeGrace, November 30, 2007