Happy New Year and Welcome to the Teaching by Reaching Podcast!

In this episode, I want to shift the focus from the students to the teachers for a moment! If you are an administrator, I would encourage you to share this episode with your educator peeps! You can also download all 5 days of Refresh by clicking here.  And then, of course, you can share with the people who need a little bit of encouragement going into 2023!

1. You are important and needed. Seems pretty cliche, but I think some of you may need to really get that in your mind and heart.  So to do that, I want you to think of 3 specific students you have had an impact on.  Write them down. How did you impact them?  How did they let you know that you had an impact on them? How did it make you feel to know that you impacted them?

I love this Todd Whitaker quote so much I put it at the very beginning of my book – “The best thing about being a teacher is that it matters. The hardest thing about being a teacher is that it matters every day.” 

But just think – you were put in your students’ lives for a reason – the students you have right now.  And they may be really difficult students, but the students who are taking the most out of you are probably the ones you can have the biggest impact on! 

2. You are blessed to have met and to be in the lives of each of your students. You are blessed to have the opportunity to teach them.

So...why are you thankful for your current students? Who’s personality do you really love? What situations are some of your students going through right now that God intentionally put them with you because He knew you could take care of them while they are in school?

 What an honor to be a teacher.  Society doesn’t always give credit to teachers, but you literally have the opportunity to shape lives every day – and for some of those lives, you may be the only point of love and security they know.  This is a big job, but what an honor!

 So when you get worn down, which you will, because it’s hard to be that person day in and day out, remember that you are blessed to have had this calling, you are making an impact FAR beyond what you will ever see here on Earth, and your students are blessed to have you.

#3: You get to have a job that you are passionate about!

My sweet dad sold pipe for the pipeline for his entire career, and while he liked the people and the company he worked for, he couldn’t stand what he did. He had no passion for selling pipe. He did it as a job.  He did it well and he was consistent, but he was just living for his days off and eventually retirement.  Thankfully, he got to enjoy a couple of years of retirement before he passed away, but I have thought many times how thankful I am that my work is actually my passion. 

My mom has journal entries that she wrote about me when I was 4 years old of setting up my "classrooms" with my stuffed animals and dolls. I have always been passionate about students and teaching, and I love to learn myself, so that goes hand in hand. I love to see students’ faces light up, and to try something new, and to collaborate with other teachers.  

 Here’s the flip side of that though, whenever you do something you’re passionate about, you tend to take it more personally and invest more of yourself.  So you get tired.  When students don’t respond the way you want them to, it keeps you up at night.  You get frustrated and angry, and want to control so much more of it because you love it, and you love them.

 So take a minute to remember (and you know I'm all about writing it down) why you are passionate about being a teacher…what fills you up when you are teaching? Why did you become a teacher?  What are you still