Ode (To Educators Everywhere)

Speaking for others has never been my style,
but I promise you this will be worth your while.

I feel the need to apologize for something that isn’t my fault.
What else can you do when your world comes to a screeching halt
or when you see the people you care about get burned and scarred?

Above all else, it makes you realize just how hard
the so-called “real world” can be
so don’t ever think, “This can’t happen to me.”
because no matter how good and no matter how strong
you think you are, there’s always room for something to go wrong
and it may not be your fault and others might be blameless,
but what matters is how you treat people and just how heinous
the crime really is, what’s been disrupted, and how you can solve it;
do everything you can, don’t just shove it in a closet.

When your career’s motto is “Lead By Example”,
how do you expect others to react and to handle
the same situations that you have faced
if you can’t offer them criticism that’s also laced
with confidence and with guidance?
Without those things, how can students ever be their finest?

What you may not realize is that we look up to you
and try to emulate exactly what you do.
No matter how high and no matter how low
the age range is, your experience shows
and that’s what propels us to be as successful as you,
even if we don’t end up doing the same kind of work that you do.

Everyone has their mentors and guides that have helped pave the way
and to be honest, you’re the reason why we all have stayed
as long as we have because at the end of the day we know that your job is not easy;
hard times have fallen on all, making us queasy
with a sense of brokenness and disconnect
produced by behavior that some might deem suspect.

The reason for this is not a critique,
it’s merely being used as a technique
in which to appeal
to your sense of duty and to reveal
something that not a lot of us openly share
and that is the message that we all actually truly care
about what happens to you and your jobs
because without you, all the odds
would be against us and no one would believe
in us, our potential, or what we can achieve.

So thank you from the bottom of our hearts
for going above and beyond and giving us a head start
on developing the tools with which we can achieve
our hopes, our goals, and all of our dreams.

 

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