We will be celebrating “Faculty Appreciation Week” next week and with the overwhelming majority of schools making their ways through their versions of distance learning we will – rightfully – hear all the ways that having school at home (which is not homeschooling) has brought newfound appreciation for all the things that teachers do to facilitate learning, inspire growth, foster imagination, support development, catalyze innovation, nurture spirits and souls and otherwise care for and love their children. We will prepare treats, send gift e-cards and even invite our students to capture their messages of appreciation. And we should! But if we genuinely want to show our appreciation for faculty, perhaps we should give them the one gift they most surely want and have most truly earned – the benefit of the doubt.
I wrote a torrent of words (even for me) last week about all the ways we should carry the lessons of distance learning forward to school; that there are important lessons and platforms and pedagogies and ideas that should carry forward into school whenever we do return. We don’t want to go back to school, we want to go forward. But in terms of teacher appreciation, I would argue the opposite. The lesson we want to learn from distance learning about appreciating and valuing teachers is that we actually do want to go back – way back – to a time when we gave our teachers the benefit of the doubt.
Teachers are not infallible. Teachers make mistakes. Teachers can do the wrong thing. Giving teachers the benefit of the doubt doesn’t mean blind faith. Giving teachers the benefit of the doubt doesn’t mean parents shouldn’t advocate for their children. Giving teachers the benefit of the doubt doesn’t meant that sometimes parents don’t have a better solution to an issue than their teachers. The best of schools foster healthy parent-teacher relationships explicitly because of these truths. Both partners are required to produce the best results. But somewhere in between my time as a student to my time as an educator, the culture changed. Respect for teachers went from being automatic to being earned to being ignored.
So this year for “Teacher Appreciation Week” absolutely send gift cards and post creatively on social media. Buy ads in yearbooks, post lawns signs and lead parades. Express your appreciation for all the things your child(ren)’s teacher(s) have done to make this transition to distance learning as successful as it has been. Please.
But let’s also try assuming the best of our teachers – even when they have difficult truths to share. Give them the benefit of the doubt – even when they don’t communicate as well as they could. Treat them as partners – even when they make mistakes. Let’s not simply tell our teachers that we appreciate them; let’s actually appreciate them.
