As a former teacher, I’m allowed to say this. I do not believe teachers can possibly understand the power they hold in regards to the lives of the children they teach. Yes, I’ve been out of the classroom longer than I was in it at this point - I taught kindergarten and reading for seven years and Charlie is nine – but I believe seven years in an early childhood classroom, along with a master’s degree, warrants at least some expertise when it comes to education. Still, until my own children began attending school, I did not comprehend the magnitude of the role teachers play in the development of their students.

I was a good teacher. Some might even say I was a great one. My principal called me one of the best teachers he’d ever seen and people, he was old; he’d seen a lot. He told me dozens of parents sent him notes every summer requesting him to place their children in my class. He asked me to share lesson plans with veteran teachers, mentor first year teachers, serve as the grade chairperson, and pilot new curriculum. I had complete confidence in myself in the classroom. I believed my students were in an excellent educational environment. I still do.

I found success in the classroom. I taught my students to read, write, add and subtract. I taught them to recognize vowels, consonants, blends, and rhyming words. I taught them to count syllables, measure inches, and hypothesize results. I taught them the differences between cities, states, and countries. I taught them the differences between periods, questions marks, and exclamation points. I taught them to raise their hands to speak, to use polite manners, to take turns on the playground, to share toys during center time. I taught them, and I taught them, and I taught them. For one-hundred and eighty days I taught them, and I know I taught them well.

Now that I have my own children, however, I realize my job as a kindergarten teacher didn’t have much at all to do with teaching. My job as a kindergarten teacher was to help my students love themselves and love learning, and those are some serious responsibilities my friends. There’s a whole lot more that goes into nurturing the spirit of a child than creating dynamic lesson plans and engaging activities and quality assignments. Yes, teaching skills is both necessary and important, and it occurs every day in classrooms all over the world, but training a child to acknowledge their self-worth and the worth of others is a major undertaking. Making a notable impact on a child’s heart is more than a career choice. It’s a lofty goal, a significant objective, a chosen mindset . . . a purpose.

As a parent, I have witnessed the influence a teacher can have on a child from an entirely different perspective. Now, I can fully understand the weight of the words teachers speak, the behaviors they model, and the values they impart. Next to my husband and me, our children spend the majority of their time with their teachers. And Charlie and Libby won’t simply learn to multiply, divide, and proofread from these people. They will learn to express their ideas, thoughts, and feelings. They will learn to separate facts from opinions. They will learn how to respond to challenges and how to encourage their peers. They will learn organization and planning and patience and determination and perseverance and the power of a positive attitude. Most importantly, they will learn how to love themselves and how to treat others.

I enjoyed being with kids from an early age. In fact, most of my jobs as an adolescent involved caring for or instructing young children – I was a babysitter, I gave swimming lessons, I coached gymnastics. I suppose my journey into the field of education was a natural choice, but I can’t say I felt led into it. I just ended up there. Still, I loved teaching. I adored my students and found great joy in witnessing them master new skills and concepts. I look back on my years in the classroom with happy memories and little guilt, as I’m certain I taught my students in ways I want my own children to be taught – I used an uplifting, hands-on approach and tons of positive reinforcement. Yet, I know without a doubt that I wasn’t aware of the power I wielded when I was an educator. I simply didn’t realize my ability to change the course of a child’s day, or quite possibly, his life, with a look, a word, a touch.

If I could go back and do it all over again, I wouldn’t worry so much about whether my students could identify digraphs and dipthongs. Heck, I bet most people I know don’t have a clue what those words mean. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I remember the difference?!? No, I wouldn’t focus on the teaching of skills if I could revisit my former students.

I would focus on the training of hearts.

I would play more. I would giggle more. I would listen more. I would hug more.

I wouldn’t stop at vowing to say one positive thing about each child every day. I would find a dozen things, and say them a dozen times. I would notice when a student got a new outfit or a new haircut or a new pencil, because the things we find irrelevant have infinite meaning for a child. And I wouldn’t strive to let parents know whether their children had successfully mastered a list of skills; I would strive to let them know what I witnessed in their child’s character, because in the end, isn’t that what really matters?

My children are in an amazing school with incredible teachers. My kindergartner knows all about the planets and my third grader can tell me the difference between a digraph and a dipthong (and when he gets home, I’m going to ask him what it is because for the life of me I can’t remember!). But that’s not why I’m grateful for the teachers in my children’s lives. I’m grateful because my children have teachers who care about them long after they leave their classroom. I’m grateful because my children have teachers who pray for them, and for their school, on a daily basis. I’m grateful because my children have teachers who send bones home in a little baggie when they hear about our family’s new puppy. I’m grateful because my children have teachers who stand outside on a cold December morning to sing “Silent Night” to their students as they walk in from the carpool line.

Teachers are vital. They are imperative. They are invaluable, inestimable, incalculable. They are central, critical, crucial. Teachers are priceless, and I can only hope that if I ever enter a classroom as a teacher again, I will remember exactly what it means to stand in front of a group of children, and hold their hearts in my hands.