It takes an awful lot to be a teacher, balancing the problems that students may be having both in and out of school while also balancing their own lives. Sometimes teachers have to push their life at home to the bottom of their priority list because a student needs extra help in the subject. Teachers may do a lot in the classroom, but the ones who do even more for their students outside of class are the ones who deserve rewards. From hosting clubs, study sessions, tutoring, coaching sports, and so on, these are the teachers who do so much more than just teaching in the classroom.
These are the teachers who will send their kids home on the bus because they have a student who needs a letter of recommendation written for college. The letter could be due that night, yet these teachers don't turn them away because they know how important this is for them to succeed. They treat their students as their own, guiding them in the right direction, opening their eyes to a future that might be more suitable to them than they were originally planning. These are the teachers who lend you a few dollars for lunch because they would rather you take their spare change than see you go hungry. These are the teachers who will smile when you are happy, and want to know what's going on when your'e upset. They will go out of their way to make sure you are succeeding, both inside and outside of class because they feel as if you are their own.
These teachers also know what it feels like to come home late at night because they were at school coaching a sport or running a club. A few extra hours doesn't seem like a big deal, yet these few hours steals time away from their personal lives at home. Precious time that could be spent with their significant others, children, and family, is spent on generating ideas for a club, managing fundraisers, coaching a young team of athletes, or planning school trips across seas. They take time away from home to put their students first, once again. Even hours at home are spent putting effort into planning events, sports teams, and clubs. Not only do these people put so much time into making sure that their students are getting the education they need, grading their homework and reading their papers, yet they are also making sure that they have things to do outside of the classroom.
We take these things for granted everyday, only believing that this is all apart of their "jobs", yet they do so much more than their job requires of them. We give them so much grief because they are in a bad mood one morning, yet we don't realize how much they do for us on a daily basis. These teachers do so much more than they were ever asked to do, yet we refuse to acknowledge how much they open up our eyes to the world. Without them, without the one or two teachers who taught you more about life than in the classroom, we wouldn't be who we are. We are shaped by these people everyday, we need to be thankful for the ones who helped us succeed, not only in the classroom, but also in the outside world.
