Tipping the hat to teachers and coaches
As the school year winds down, I’d like to offer
appreciation to teachers and coaches for another year of helping our children
(in the collective sense) learn and grow.
I look at our youth soccer coach and marvel at how he can control a field of 30 second- to fourth-graders, let alone teach them how to play the game. My only experience with getting large groups of young kids to comply with orders is directing them to the food table for pizza and cake at a birthday party, and even that isn’t so easy.
Or a middle school teacher who has to deal with a class full of attitude and hormones and actually gets them to pay attention and learn, or as they say, “stay on task.” Imagine spending a day with this age group? Anyone who has dealt with kids knows that this is no picnic. Or the music teacher who teaches little ones how to eke out a complex series of symbols in musical language from a violin or piano (and has to listen to squeaking all day long) and then produces a recital with a room full of kids who can actually play beautiful songs.
When you think about it, which I don’t do enough, it’s amazing how many people are involved in teaching our children skills and shaping th em into adults. While we are our children’s first teachers, and try to continue to be through their lives (with less and less effect, it feels, as the years go by), it is the proverbial village that helps us teach and guide them. In our culture wars of “it takes a parent” vs. “it takes a village,” I say it takes parents and a village to raise kids.
While we’ve celebrated Mother’s Day and are soon to celebrate Father’s Day, here’s to Teacher’s and Coaches Appreciation Day, which can also include all others who help us navigate the journey of raising those who we hope will be loving, responsible, productive adults.
---Allison
