“Teacher of the Year” Blues
Tags: Education

Photo by Roman Mager on Unsplash

I hate the entire concept of “Teacher of the Year” awards. They are inherently unfair popularity contests which favor teachers who either work with extremely high achieving students, students facing headline-worthy challenges, or who manage to attract a lot of attention. The higher up on the TOY ladder you go, the sillier the whole thing becomes. National TOY candidates must be able to present a history of near-miraculous results in order to be recognized, and this profession is not built upon the backs of miracle workers. It is built upon a foundation of hard-working, skilled professionals doing a difficult job with very little specific feedback outside of infrequent principal observations. Every time the end-of-year ceremony takes place where TOY is awarded, I become even grumpier than I usually am by the time May comes around. This is because I have a secret.

I desperately want to be named Teacher of the Year.

I see this as a weakness of character on my part. I’m a veteran teacher, after all, and teacher culture is very specific about the need for rewards. We are not supposed to want them, let alone need them. We are supposed to view them as an unnecessary, if pleasant, surprise in a career where we get every bit of validation needed from our students. The sheer joy of learning, shining out from the faces in our classrooms, is supposed to be the only compensation we need in this world. We are meant to be guides on the side, providing gentle nudges to students who should really be teaching themselves. We are supposed to be humble catalysts, and humble catalysts do not desire a cheaply made plaque with their name printed on it to hang on the wall. We teach because we love kids. We are happy to even receive a meager salary at the end of each month for doing such noble work.

I’d be happy just to be nominated for Teacher of the Year.

Does that statement sound a bit sanctimonious? It’s not. I would be thrilled to be nominated for the award because nominations, despite not providing the thrill of victory, are at least something. It only takes one fellow educator to put your name on the list, but that is a lot better than having none of your fellow educators put your name on the list. The trick is that you can’t actually tell anybody that you want to be nominated. That would be desperate and pathetic. Instead, you simply do as good a job as possible and hope somebody notices. Honestly, being nominated for TOY is actually better than winning it outright. Winning brings a number of duties and hassles that I could do without, while being nominated involves no extra work at all. You simply chalk up not winning to an overly political process and bask in the pride that a colleague felt like you were a good teacher.

Clearly, I have a self-esteem issue.

I’m desperate for praise, but I’m in good company. Tom Junod, in an article about Fred Rogers for Esquire, observed that the great man was greedy for validation from the endless parade of fans who would surround him every time he went out in public. He loved to hear them describe how his show, and its message, changed their lives for the better. Teachers are no different than Mister Rogers in this respect. We are human beings, and we are in the business of changing lives every day in our classrooms. We pour our blood sweat and tears into forming relationships with students and trying to help them learn important things that social media and video games simply cannot deliver. I absolutely need to hear that, at least part of the time, all my hard work has managed to do some good in the world. This is why, at the end of the year, I encourage leave out a pile of index cards that kids can write farewell messages to me on. It is my low-rent version of a yearbook, but every year I get really nice, thoughtful messages from kids who tell me that I did a good job. I have a big pile of these cards squirreled away, and I pull them out and read them after bad days.

Now that another year has gone by, and another crop of humble-yet-proud teachers have been awarded their plaques, I have to make peace with the fact that I may never win this ridiculous prize, no matter how much I’d like to. I also have to admit that, if I ever did win Teacher of the Year, I would probably find something else to covet. I suspect that the lucky winners don’t find their own professional insecurities disappearing forever after hanging the plaques in their classrooms. They go back to teaching their lessons and building relationships, and wondering if they actually make much of a difference to their students once all is said and done. I think they should start putting out their own little piles of index cards at the end of the year and read them after bad days. If they feel silly for asking kids to do it, they just need to remember that Mister Rogers said it was okay.