February 11, 2015

"Teachers are the molders of dreams." – Guy Doud

During Valentine’s Day week, 2/8/15 - 2/14/15, share your love for teaching with a blog post, tweet, picture or video and unite with the hashtag #LoveTeaching.

Teaching is a noble profession, and arguably the one that gives rise to all careers. A great teacher can change the life of a student. That doesn’t mean it’s always easy or fun, but it means dedicating your work to the success of others.

Too often we see the stories of those who chose to leave teaching, or one-sided tales of teacher toil, propped up in social media. Sure, teaching is not an easy job, but the challenges in teaching are not the whole story. In fact, there's another narrative to be told: the upside of teaching.

Teaching is America in the making. Our classrooms are, as Mike Rose wrote in Possible Lives, "places that embody the hope for a free and educated society that has, at its best, driven this extraordinary American experiment from the beginning." It's time to be a voice for the hope, promise and possibilities that come alive in the classroom.

It's time to share why we teach, why we choose to stay in schools and live out this vocation. We can shine a light on all the good teaching has to offer by telling this upside of the story. The reasons will surely be broad, but with this broad light we can give a glimpse of the beautiful spectrum of possibilities that teaching offers. So what's your reason why you #LoveTeaching?

Maybe it’s...

• an inspiring teacher you had
• the motivation to become a teacher yourself
• your decision to remain in the profession
• the rewards you find in teaching

No matter the reason that you #LoveTeaching, from February 8th through February 14th, you are invited to join teachers everywhere and take part in a weeklong blogging and social media campaign to share what you love about teaching using the #LoveTeaching hashtag across all social channels. 

To let others know about #LoveTeaching week, you can watch and share the short explainer video that lays out the campaign. There is also the infographic below that outlines how to get involved, including a printable PDF version to hang in the teachers' lounge, and a toolkit for educators to use to help them craft blog posts, share pictures/videos, or highlight their thoughts using the hashtag on any social media channel.

It’s time to suppress the negative narratives about teaching and quitting the profession. Let's get more positive stories from educators out there into the public dialogue, re-focus on the reasons that we got into this profession in the first place, and let others know that we #LoveTeaching. The world needs to hear your story about why you chose the classroom and why you are still in it.

So, will you share your reasons why you #LoveTeaching?