Here’s a shout-out to the women and men of my chosen profession. They generally don’t sing their own praises. Society takes them for granted or throws them under the bus when schools underperform. Some hear from former students later in life, but most just fade into the chalk dust. I think I know something about teachers. I had some. I was one. I worked alongside both private and public school teachers, and I taught college students who were preparing to be teachers. I can state for a fact that teachers don’t operate from an air of their own superiority. The teachers I have known had one thing on their hearts. To do what is best for kids.

According to a National Center for Education Statistics study, the majority of teachers in American public and private schools happen to be Christian women. They are more likely to pray during the day then the population at large. They attend church in higher percentages than the population at large.

Teaching is a favorite vocation for many Christians. It gets as close as anything to doing what Jesus did. “Teacher” is what others regularly called Jesus, and it is how he at times referred to himself. 

The reward of teaching becomes tangible in only one way: “It is enough for students to be like their teachers” (Matthew 10:25). That would be more than enough for me. If I have a headstone, I want one anonymous line on it: “He was a teacher.”