Teacher: appreciated

A wise man once said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." I've been thinking about that this week, and I thought it'd be good to give a shout out to the parents in my class that have made this week... nay, year great.


It is teacher appreciation week this week. Parents came in last Friday night and decorated my door.

The other day kids gave me lolly-pops, soda-pop, and popcorn. Then they gave me a "pop-quiz" with terrible puns and jokes. Pretty solid.

Pop Quiz

Other parents have sent in treats, lunch, and cards expressing their appreciation.

So I wanted to respond with my appreciation.

Thank you parents.  You sent me your kids. You trusted me to teach. You expected me to entertain and to educate. You hoped I could help. You dropped your kid off on the first day of school with the expectation that by the end of the year your child would be one year smarter.  One year more grown up. One year better. I don't take that expectation lightly. I hope I've lived up to it. I think I have.

I won an award this month. I had dinner at West Lake High and got a plaque and get my picture taken. The entire time I was there I was thinking, "why aren't my students here? They're the ones that did all the work. All I did was stear them in the right direction. I just came up with the idea... they made it awesome." And come to think of it... I didn't even come up with the idea. It was my wife that originally suggested to rename the stinkin' road.

I wrote a blog post a few weeks ago advising teachers to be more awesome. I guess that's easy to say when you have parents, students, a school, an administration, and other teachers that are awesome. I do awesome things with my students because they can handle it. I do awesome things with my students because parents support it. Thank you for that support.

You came to our stand-up comedy night. You came to our movie premier. You came to Parent Teacher Conferences, Book Fairs, Dads and Donuts, Stay and Play, and Ollie Otter Assemblies. You'll be at the 5K, Leaning Conference, and the Dance Festival. And you'll do it all again next year.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for your support. And thank you for letting your kid be in my class this year.

-Mr. Young