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Editor's note: For eight years, Google for Education has partnered with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) supports educators across the country through annual events. National Best Teacher Program. In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, Missy Testerman, a Tennessee native who won the 2024 National Teacher of the Year award, published an open letter to her fellow educators.
Dear teachers,
I don't remember much about my first classroom. I do know that there was a desk and there were crayons. But what I remember is my teachers, Mrs. Reimer, Mr. Guggisberg, Mrs. Stokesbury, and Mr. Long, and how they made me feel. These teachers not only nurtured me and motivated me to learn what they taught, but they also gave me a model of the person I wanted to be.
My teachers taught me the importance of dignity. As teachers, we give dignity to our students when we “stand in the gap” every day. When we listen to our students and show them the way, when we notice what they need and remove the barriers to achieving it, we move our students from where they are now to where they will be in the future. Create a “pass-through” to becoming a student. This may include sending bags of food home for a long weekend, helping a family find a counselor for a teen struggling with depression, or sending snacks to students heading to soccer practice. It is possible to do so. In most cases, these small acts of awareness and action go unnoticed by most people, but for the students whose dignity is restored, respect is established, trust is built, and potential is realized. That will happen.
