Teacher Appreciation Day is celebrated this week. Teaching preschool is not just a sweet job. Often people go “AWE CUTE” when I say I teach preschool. Yes! There are many moments when you experience tenderness while working with little people. However, being a preschool teacher requires rigor, discipline, good habits, study, commitment, resiliency… All of these on the teacher! When you work with little people, you need to be aware of the impact your work will have on your students’ lives (and that alone is a pretty big deal!). When you work with little people, you need to make sure you connect with all of your children, you need to take care of yourself, you need to be wise to know when a band aid is needed at the wound or at the heart. When you work with little ones, you need to make sure you give them tools to be autonomous. And most important you need to be ready to answer the question: “Am I worthy of imitation?” because children learn through imitation. They will imitate what they see. They notice and imitate the way we speak to them, how we treat our co-workers, how enthusiastic we are about the caterpillar becoming a butterfly and how excited we get when we find out the name for the bug we found outside. 

Yes! Being a preschool teacher is sweet! We get to sing, we get to dance, we plant flowers, we learn poems, we play outside, we read many fun stories, we enjoy the sensory bin, we get to see their vocabulary bloom, we see how well they become at counting and measuring and, of course, we receive beautiful drawings and many hugs. Today, I ask you to appreciate our preschool teachers. It is a TOUGH job, it requires ALL of your heart. Happy Teacher’s Day Miss Melanie, Miss Chloe, Miss Laura, Miss Barbara, Miss Petrona, Miss Ale, Miss Claudia and Miss Shawn.