Guest Blogger

Hello everyone, it's Leslie, Director of TFI. I'll be writing with Trina throughout the fall because it is this time of year that I seem to miss teaching the most.....and though I'm no longer teaching in the classroom, I still consider myself an educator.

The start of the year is always filled with excitement and limitless opportunities. Every year, as a teacher and as a student, the smell of new school supplies would be just as exciting as the smell of freshly baked cookies. My mug of pens would be filled to maximum capacity, and each pencil sharpened to a beautifully tipped point. It usually only took three days before my desk mirrored that of a disaster zone, and I had to scramble to find a writing utensil. But each year I vowed to be more organized than the year before. I'm not a disorganized person by nature, but at the start of each class I jumped excitedly into Science, placing various supplies all over the room in an effort to get my students to understand.

As teachers we all believe that, in most cases, we help students most in the non-academic arenas. I am not sure a student's life was ever changed when he figured out the Tibetan Plateau was formed as India crashed into Asia (so cool!!!), but I do believe that a student's life can be changed when a teacher gives him the confidence to be himself. One such example occurred during my last year of teaching. As a sixth grade teacher I was asked to choose a student from my homeroom to give a tour of the school to the incoming fifth graders. Normally, teachers choose the straight-A, ever-attentive student (usually a girl) that gladly does whatever the teacher asks. Not me. This particular year I chose a student who was bussed in from a lower-performing school who talked incessantly. Even my colleagues asked my why I chose this student. I couldn't answer, except that I found him to be particularly interesting. Don't you know that on the day of the tour, he showed up in a suit!

It is for reasons like this that I miss teaching, but I realize the importance of what TFI does. Without excellent teachers (the teachers who know, instinctively, what to do to enhance the life of their students) students don't stand a chance. It is soooo important that we keep these teachers engaged and inspired!