24/09/2025
Thank You to all the fantastic teachers out there.
Four months ago, a 7-year-old boy looked at me and said:
“You’re not needed anymore.”
It wasn’t anger. Just a child repeating what he had heard at home:
“She doesn’t even know how to make TikTok videos.
My mom says old teachers should retire.”
I smiled on the outside. But inside—I broke.
🌿 For 36 years, I taught the youngest ones, the first graders. And four months ago, I closed my classroom door for the last time.
When I started back in the late ’80s, teaching felt like a calling. Families trusted us. Parents brought homemade pies, children gave clumsy drawings with crooked hearts that said: “Teacher, I love you.” Nothing compared to the joy of hearing a child read their first sentence out loud.
But things changed. Slowly. Step by step.
Less respect. More loneliness.
Fewer smiles, more paperwork.
Screens instead of stories. Surveillance instead of trust.
Exhausted children staring at devices, and we were expected to fix it all… in six lessons.
Still, I stayed. For the moments that saved me:
A whisper—“I feel safe with you.”
A note—“Thank you, you’re like a grandma to me.”
A shy child finally saying, after weeks of silence: “I read it!”
Those moments carried me through countless mornings.
But this past year broke me.
Threats. Pressure. Colleagues leaving mid-semester.
A system that treated us like pawns.
So I packed my things.
Old drawings, faded with time.
Little notes from children: “Thank you for loving me, even when I was difficult.”
No speeches, no celebration. Just a distracted handshake from a principal glued to his phone.
I left behind my rocking chair, stickers, decorations…
But I took with me what mattered most: the eyes of children who found a refuge in me.
🌸 Maybe I’ll volunteer. Maybe I’ll learn to bake bread.
Or maybe I’ll just sit on the porch with a cup of tea, remembering a softer world.
Yes, I miss teaching. I miss when parents and teachers were partners. When education meant growing together.
And if you’ve ever been a teacher, you know:
We never did it for the summer breaks.
We did it for the shy smile, the tied shoelace, the first sentence read out loud.
We did it out of love.
So if you meet a teacher—yesterday, today, or tomorrow—thank them.
Not with candy. Not with champagne.
But with respect. 🌹
Because in a world that forgets too quickly, they never forgot a single child.
