Are you bogged down yet?  Are the looming test scores causing you to lose sleep?  I thought so.  As teachers, it is difficult not to allow those scores to haunt you in the back of your mind. Even when you are unaware of it, they are in the shadows of the corners.  This is because you are conscientious. You have the desire for every one of your students to succeed, not just on a test, but in life.  It also doesn’t help much that your job depends on their scores, and that their scores depend on so much more than just what you teach during the school day.  But rather than focus on all the pressure of upcoming testing, and all that you have yet to teach, I want to focus on what is true about most teachers I know.

• You are both passionate and compassionate.
• You work extremely hard.
• You love teaching.
• You are good at what you do.
• You teach and reteach not because you have to, but because your students succeed when you do.
• You truly want them to get it.
• You know more about your subject area than most people.
• You know that content is only a small part of educating children.
• You recognize that teaching life skills, and social skills will take them further than content ever will.
• You find a way to love even the difficult-to-love students.
• You spend more of your own money on your classroom than you should.
• You endure the difficult parts of your job for the privilege of working with kids.
• You sit through meetings that question your worth, and you take it all personally.
• You get up and try to jump through whatever the new hoop is, in order to keep doing what you love.
• You tune out all the voices everywhere that point fingers at you as the problem with education.
• You rise every morning before the sun to prove that you are NOT the problem.
• You pray for someone somewhere to listen to you.
• You keep going even when they don’t.
• You are resilient.
• You are tough.
• You are strong.
• You are the most determined group of people on the planet.
• You are amazing.

You are a teacher.  Go and teach your heart out, and know that you have given it your all.  Hold your head high.  Stand firm in your knowledge that you are doing all that you can.  Rest in the fact that there is nothing more you could give.  You have left every ounce of effort on the battle field. On testing days be confident of that.  Then pray that your students will also give every ounce of their own effort.  In the weeks between now and testing, pray that your example of giving it all would inspire them to do the same. Be assured that confidence is caught more than it is taught.  Know that you are good enough, and they will know it too.