Teachers: You Are Entrusted with the World
It’s the calm before the storm. Or maybe, really, it’s the storm before the hurricane. It’s the week before the kids come. This week, you will decorate and plan and move furniture and make copies, the weight of expectations heavy on your shoulders and the overwhelm of to do’s at the forefront of your mind. This week you will work like crazy, wishing there were more time and wondering what this year will be like and who your students will be. Next week, children will fill these halls and sit in your classrooms, and they will look to you expectantly. The expressions on their faces will all be different, to be sure, but the emotions will have similar roots. “Will I fit in? Will they like me? Will I be safe here?” You -- yes, you -- hold the answers to their questions. While you are busy making name tags and creating seating charts, the world is entrusting you with its future. You are entrusted with the world. Each child you see on Monday morning is a piece of the collective future we will face. Each child who looks to you for acceptance and safety is a person who will make our world better or worse,...