Worldwide Teacher Appreciation Day

By designation of UNESCO today October 5th is Worldwide Teacher Appreciation Day. I am very lucky that every day I get to talk to and work with some of the best, most caring and hardest working teachers in the world. Frankly there are a lot of great teachers out there. But there are two teachers who I most appreciate.

One of them is my wife. My wife teaches in a middle school and teaches exploratory courses. She teaches kids how to do research, how to use a library, how to use technology in support of there education, but most of all she teaches kids to appreciate reading. She works with teachers in all of the regular courses - science, math, social studies, English and the like. But  as a librarian she has a gift for getting kids to read for pleasure. She spend uncounted hours reading middle school level fiction so that she can recommend books to young readers. She learns their interests and helps them find books that they will enjoy. Because she has read the books she knows what the book is about and how the story is told in ways far beyond what one gets from reading a synopsis. Pleasure reading is way up since she came to that school. And that is a contribution to society that I appreciate.

The other teacher who constantly amazes me is my son. My son is an elementary school special education teacher. He is something of a specialist in Autism and those wonderful but often challenging students have a special place in his heart. With his training, his patience and his caring he helps some of the hardest to help students in his school. And he does it with style and grace. He is also protective of his students and even students who are not "his" assigned students. If he sees a student not getting a fair break he will step up for them. If there is one thing we really need it is for teachers like my son to stand up for what it right and fair - to lead by example.

So I appreciate a lot of teachers around the world but these two are special to me.

Other Microsoft bloggers are thanking teachers today as well: