Inspiration: Important Work

Sometimes a good quote or piece of advice from a seasoned veteran or someone I admire makes me smile and proud to do what I do. The book I finished last week (Finding Joy in Teaching Students of Diverse Backgrounds) ended with this quote from a teacher:

"I want teachers to hear, when they read this, that what they do is important and it makes a difference. What we do is important, it's valuable and it's not easy, but it's the most rewarding and beautiful thing that you can do for a living. It's part of making the world a better place, making humans want to be better people, and so I hope people realize we might be in a tough environment economically, we might be in a tough profession where people might not give us the respect that I think we deserve, but we're doing it because it's an important position to make society and people better."

This is something I hope all educators and future educators remember. It might be hard to feel this way all the time, but it's important to remember why we all went in to teaching in the first place.