Teacher Appreciation Week: Giving Kudos Where They’re Due

You might have seen the results of that recent National Education Association survey: Asked what gift they'd most wish to receive from their students, nearly half of teachers polled said a "Thank you" would do the trick. You know what we're going to say here: We should also be showing our teacher appreciation with budget and policy changes. But concrete expressions of gratitude are just one kind. Without intangibles such as respect and admiration, a bigger paycheck and a bit more creative freedom in the classroom will go only so far.

We need a Teacher Appreciation Society. The cliché that teaching should be as widely esteemed a career choice as, say, medicine and law is now entering its twilight years -- it's also truer than ever. Here at GLEF, we try to show teachers our boundless gratitude by publishing stories, guides, and resources we hope will make their days a smidge easier now and then. Well, fine. But today, we add this: Thank you. If we had a whiteboard in front of us, we'd write it a hundred times.

Here are selected articles, blog entries, and poll questions on Edutopia.org related to the issue of teacher appreciation:

• Are Teacher Unions the Problem?: A Clear Look at a Cloudy Issue
• Can teachers instill self-confidence in students who aren't learning it at home?
• Does your school have healthy parent-teacher partnerships?
• Pecking Order: Parent Pressure Is Eclipsing Teacher Control
• Power Surge: Gaining Strength Frpm Positive Teachers
• Should teachers receive incentive pay for improving student performance?
• The Teacher Leader: Words of Wisdom From Those Who Know Best
• Treating Teachers as Professionals: The Value of Adequate Preparation Time
• R-E-S-P-E-C-T: What Keeps Teachers Teaching?
• What will do the most to keep teachers in the profession?
• What will do the most to reduce time spent on classroom management?