The Star Polisher  (Leah Becks)

I have a great job in the universe of occupations.
What do I do?
I’m a “star polisher”.
I have a very important job.
If you want to know how important
Just go out at night and look at the stars.
Twinkling and sparkling.
You see, I’m a teacher.
The stars are the children in my class.
My job is to take them in-
In whatever shape they’re in-
And shine and buff them and send them out to take
Their places as bright little twinkling beacons in the sky.
They come in my room in all shapes and sizes.
Sometimes they’re bent, tarnished, dirty, crinkly, and broken.
Some stars are cuddly, soft, and sweet.
Some stars are prickly and thorny.
I tell them that the world cannot do without them.
I tell them they can do anything they set their minds to do.
I tell them they can be the brightest, shiniest stars in the sky
and the world will be a better place because of them.
Each night as I look at the sky, I'm reminded of my very
important job and awesome responsibility.
I go and get my soft buffing cloth and my bottle of polish in preparation
for tomorrow and for my class of little stars.

Blueberries...
(By Jamie R. Vollmer)

"If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn't be in business very long!"
I stood before an auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes of in-service. Their initial icy glares had turned to restless agitation. You could cut the hostility with a knife.  I represented a group of business people dedicated to improving public schools.
I was an executive at an ice cream company that became famous in the middle 1980s when People Magazine chose our blueberry as the "Best Ice Cream in America."  I was convinced of two things. First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the industrial age and  out of step with the needs of our emerging "knowledge society".   Second, educators were a major part of the problem: they resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly. They needed to look to business.   We knew how to produce quality.  Zero defects!  Total Quality Management!  Continuous improvement!  In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced - equal parts ignorance and arrogance.

As soon as I finished, a woman's hand shot up.  She appeared polite, pleasant -- she was, in fact, a razor-edged, veteran, high school English teacher who had been waiting to unload.  She began quietly, "We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream."  I smugly replied, "Best ice cream in America, Ma'am."  "How nice," she said. "Is it rich and smooth?" "Sixteen percent butterfat," I crowed.  "Premium ingredients?" she inquired.   "Super-premium!  Nothing but triple A."  I was on a roll.   I never saw the next line coming.   "Mr. Vollmer," she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, "when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?"   In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap.  I was dead meat, but I wasn't going to lie.  "I send them back."  

"That's right!" she barked, "and we can never send back our blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with ADHD, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language.  We take them all!  Every one!  And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it's not a business.  It's school!" in an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians and secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, "Yeah! Blueberries! Blueberries!!"  And so began my long transformation. Since then, I have visited hundreds of schools.  I have learned that a school is not a business.  Schools are unable to control the quality of their raw material, they are dependent upon the vagaries of politics for a reliable revenue stream, and they are constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, competing customer groups that would send the best CEO screaming into the night.  None of this negates the need for change.  We must change what, when, and how we teach to give all children maximum opportunity to thrive in a post-industrial society. But educators cannot do this alone; these changes can occur only with the understanding, trust, permission and active support of the surrounding community.  For the most important thing I have learned is that schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs and health of the communities they serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than changing our schools, it means changing America.
 

They may forget what you said,
but they will never forget how you made them feel.
(Source Unknown)

The ABC's of Teaching

A is for the abundance of questioning and yearning
B is for both inward and outward beauty
C is for creative learning
D is for doing until it's right
E is for the effort put into preparing each night
F is for watching how far we can go
G is for seeing us blossom and grow
H is for reaching for that star so high
I is for the imagination, the courage to try
J is for joy in touching a child's life in a meaningful way
K is for kindness you bring children each day
L is for the love of teaching we see
M is for the "me" you're helping me to be
N is for never being too busy to pray
O is for overcoming our desire to stray
P is for positives you bring to each
Q is for the quintessential way to teach
R is for your willingness to give us a reason
S is for teaching us to appreciate each season
T is for touching those that sit before you
U is for understanding our fear of all that is new
V is for the vitality you show each day
W is for every wonderment you bring our way
X is for the extra special teacher you see
Y is for our yearning sense to be
Z is for the big "Yahoo!" heard from our very own zoo.

-Author Unknown
 

No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.
-Emma Goldman

Teacher's Prayer
I wanted to teach my students how to live this life on earth.
To face its struggles and its strife and to improve their worth.
Not just the lesson in a book or how the rivers flow,
But how to choose the proper path wherever they may go.
To understand eternal truth and know the right from wrong
And gather all the beauty of a flower and a song.
For if I helped the world to grow in wisdom and in grace
Then I feel that I have won and I have filled my place.
And so I asked your guidance, God that I have done my part
For character and confidence and happiness of heart.

-James Metcalf

 

Eight Reasons to Become an Early Childhood Educator

1.  Cute little children...cute little paychecks
2.  Confidence that you will never, ever forget how to count to ten
3.  You get to sing your favorite songs over and over and over and over and over...
4.  Play, play, play!
5.  With all this bending, who needs aerobics?
6.  Your classroom art is proudly displayed in many kitchen galleries
7.  Small hands...large crayons
8.  You get to make the little ones count
 

Forever in Your Heart

Although you're not their parent,
You care for them each day.
You cuddle, sing, and read to them
and watch them as they play.
You see each new accomplishment
You help them grow and learn.
You understand their language
and you listen with concern.
They come to you for comfort
and you kiss away their tears.
They proudly show their work to you
You give the loudest cheers!
No, you are not their parent
but your role is just as strong.
You nurture them and keep them safe
though maybe not for long.
You know someday the time will come
when you will have to part.
But you know each child you've cared for
is Forever in your heart.

                                                            -Anonymous
 

All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

- by Robert Fulghum

Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in Kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school.

These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work some every day.

Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup - they all die. So do we.

And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK . Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation, ecology and politics and sane living.

Think of what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and clean up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

The work can wait while you show the child the rainbow,
but the rainbow won't wait while you do the work.
-Patricia Clafford

If A Child Lives With. . .

by Dorothy Law Nolte

If a child lives with criticism. . . . . . . .he learns to condemn.

If a child lives with hostility. . . . . . . . he learns to fight.

If a child lives with fear. . . . . . . .he learns to be apprehensive.

If a child lives with jealousy. . . . . . . .he learns to feel guilt.

If a child lives with tolerance. . . . . . . .he learns to be patient.

If a child lives with encouragement . . . . . . . .he learns to be confident.

If a child lives with praise. . . . . . . .he learns to be appreciative.

If a child lives with acceptance. . . . . . . .he learns to love.

If a child lives with approval. . . . . . . .he learns to like himself.

If a child lives with recognition . . . . . . . .he learns that it is good to have a goal.

If a child lives with honesty. . . . . . . .he learns what truth is.

If a child lives with fairness. . . . . . . .he learns justice.

If a child lives with security. . . . . . . .he learns to trust in himself and others .

If a child lives with friendliness. . . . . . . .he learns the world is a nice place in which to live.

Teacher's Prayer
 
Lord, Please help me, 
To strengthen their voices, bodies and minds, 
To express their feelings and control them sometimes, 
To explore what's near and venture afar, 
But most important to love who they are.