#ThankATeacher: Reflections from New America's PreK-12 Ed Policy Team

At a recent convening on improving teachers’ professional learning opportunities, a participant asked a powerful question to frame the work: What if all teachers were as good as the best teacher you know or had? While statistically impossible, the hypothetical brings urgency to the work of improving the profession for all teachers and students. Educators need quality, sustained supports in order to become great—maybe even the best—in the minds of their students. They also deserve to be recognized, both personally and through structural policy changes, for the demanding and complex work they do every day to ensure their students are engaged, happy, and continuously learning in school.

National Teacher Appreciation Week is as good a time as any to explore these challenges, so like last year, we at New America’s PreK-12 education policy team want to #thankateacher who has touched our lives, helped shape our thinking, and inspired us to work toward improving educational outcomes for all students.

Kaylan Connally: Ms. Creekmore, my high school English teacher, made literature and poetry come to life through dramatic readings and book talks. Avoiding lectures in favor of Socratic questioning, she pushed us to think critically about texts, draw our own conclusions, and challenge each other’s ideas. She also held high expectations for our writing, inspiring us to rearrange, revise, and rewrite until truly proud of our work. She even stayed after school to offer individualized support. Ms. Creekmore taught me that writing is a fun and hard process—one that I’ve come to love and pursue professionally partly because of her.

Though she worked tirelessly as a full-time teacher, Ms. Creekmore was also a single mom and worked a second job to support her family. It shouldn’t be this way—we as a nation can and should do better. In order for all teachers to be as good as the best we know or had, we need to increase teacher pay across the board and reward teachers earlier in their careers. We also need to offer teachers advancement opportunities and high-quality supports to leverage and sustain their impact. Ms. Creekmore inspires me to work daily to ensure that all students experience great teaching. And in particular, she inspires me to work on improving current policies that aim to attract, train, and retain teachers like her in the schools where they’re needed most.

Shayna Cook: I have so much respect and love for teachers. My favorite teacher, Ms. Holmes, was awesome. She challenged me to learn history by pushing myself to new heights. In fifth grade, I remember coming home and complaining about Ms. Holmes. She was just too tough. Her class was hard work and her tests and projects were notorious. Many parents complained about the difficulty of her homework assignments. But I remember working doubly hard to meet her very high expectations. When I got an A on one of her tests, I knew that I deserved it. She will always stand out in mind because she taught me how to study, how to write, and most importantly how to persevere when things got tough.   

Another teacher that I will always remember is Ms. Pansy. She took care of me from three-months-old to three-years-old. She was loving and nurturing. She told me stories and we talked about everything. Even when I got older, we maintained our relationship. She’s had a huge influence on me. She’s taught me empathy and the importance of caring for others from a young age. It is because of her example that I developed such a love for teaching young children.

Amaya Garcia: Growing up I had a handful of teachers that were truly exceptional. Mrs. Savereide, my 8th grade English teacher, helped nurture my love of reading and early voice as a writer. Mr. Sweigert, my high school Russian teacher, made learning a foreign language an engaging and fun experience. Their classes provided a needed refuge from the noise and drama of adolescent life.

But the teacher with the greatest impact on my life was a professor I had in graduate school—Dr. Betty Malen. Dr. Malen is an educator at heart and prioritizes teaching despite working in a system that offers very few rewards or recognition for committed teaching. She provides her students with the constructive, thorough, and timely feedback necessary to push their thinking and analysis deeper. She leverages partnerships with local school districts to give students the opportunity to conduct research on real policies that are impacting schools. Dr. Malen taught me how to navigate the intersection of research, policy, and practice. But above all, her classes helped me realize the consequences of education policies that are made with little attention to the realities of what happens in schools. She always focused on the need to acknowledge the invaluable role teachers play in turning policy into practice.

Abbie Lieberman: I was fortunate to have many amazing teachers over the years, but there are two from high school who really stand out. Mr. Phipps was my history teacher in 10th grade. I had always enjoyed history but he taught the subject with such enthusiasm (and a dry sense of humor) that it quickly became my favorite class. He had high expectations of his students and challenged us to do our best work. His class was where I first learned how to write a research paper. He patiently helped me with round after round of edits, teaching me how to conduct research, organize my thoughts, and accept feedback. These lessons were invaluable for hundreds of research papers that came in later grades. The second teacher is Ms. Uribes, my high school art teacher. I loved painting, but as a stressed out high schooler who was always calculating my GPA and thinking about college admissions, I was reluctant to divert my focus from academic classes. She encouraged me to cultivate my creative side and pushed me to go outside of my comfort zone. The hour spent in her classroom was continually the highlight of my school day and I want to thank her for fostering such a positive environment for her students.

Lindsey Tepe: When I first entered the classroom as a teacher, I was surprised by the amount of time good teaching takes, both in the classroom and out. It requires detailed planning, intense preparation, hours grading, and an extraordinary amount of care and patience to engage and inspire learners. Throughout my formative years I was blessed with dozens of teachers who were generous with their time and care, none more so than Mrs. Rader, my high school history and government teacher. I first signed up for Mrs. Rader’s World History course in tenth grade, having opted out of taking history my freshman year (it was my least favorite subject at the time). She pushed me to challenge myself academically, and I ended up enrolling in AP US History the following year, and her AP Government course the year after. She also coached our high school’s mock trial club, and encouraged me to take on the role of an attorney, though public speaking was (and still is) far outside my comfort zone. But I’ll never forget the day she took a few of my classmates and me to listen to Madeleine Albright speak about her life and experience as the first female Secretary of State. It’s one thing to teach a course or coach a club—she went above and beyond to inspire us and to help us think and dream bigger, and that inspiration has had a lasting impact on my life. Thank you.

Conor Williams: After some years participating in public debates about education, I've come to realize that everyone engaged in this work filters their opinions through one of a few possible lenses. Each person thinks of education as a former student, a teacher, a taxpayer, an employer, or a number of other available perspectives. After years of self-defining as a product of public schools" and a "former teacher," this year I added the role of "parent." Which was harder than I'd expected...even though I've worked in education more or less since finishing college.

That’s why I'm extraordinarily grateful for my son's teachers this year: Ms. Gerilyn and Ms. Rohnisha. My son entered school almost as anxious as my wife and I, but Ms. Gerilyn and Ms. Rohnisha helped build a diverse classroom community that's made his first year in pre-K a fun one. As a parent, I'm so appreciative of how they’ve supported my son and his classmates. And as a former teacher, I'm in awe of the intentional way they’re making it happen. They have simultaneously modeled patience and excitement for their young students, established high expectations and playful routines, and differentiated instruction to support every kid's particular needs. I was proud of my practice as a teacher, but I'm learning so much from innovations both of them bring to the classroom each day. As a former student, I’m more than a little aware of how lucky their students are to have them.

And oh, did I mention that my son has gone from knowing his sounds and letters at the beginning of the year to reading on a first grade level? And that he went from being able to count to 50 (by ones) to being able to count beyond 100 (by ones), backwards from 100 (by ones), and up to 20 (by twos)? So: thank you, Ms. Gerilyn and Ms. Rohnisha, for laying a strong, positive cornerstone for the rest of his public education. My son has learned so much from you—and so have I.