Tips for Inspiring Teachers

How to send some encouragement your teacher’s way.

Think teaching is a good gig with short days and summers off? Think again. From planning lessons to grading papers to writing curricula, teachers give an extraordinary amount of unpaid time to make the educational experience successful for our students.

And unfortunately, what they do can be one of the most misunderstood and underappreciated jobs anywhere.

With half the school year behind you, it’s a great time to remind the teachers who invest in your children just how important they are.

Consider these ideas to make practical contributions to your child’s classroom:

• Invest Your Time
• Offer Encouragement
• Host a School Fundraiser

Invest Your Time

Educators, especially in elementary schools, will be the first to tell you that having extra hands would be their preferred superpower. Teachers could always use some help in the classroom, from grading papers to corralling students.

If time is something you can offer, consider volunteering for your child’s teacher or school to help them complete small tasks. Assembling lesson packets or checking quizzes may seem mundane, but your child’s teacher will value the extra time you’ve opened for them to complete other pressing tasks or maybe even decompress.

Volunteering also reduces the need for hired teacher’s aides, which can help your school cut costs without sacrificing the resources needed to get things done. When your child’s teacher can feel the tangible support of parents through volunteerism, they feel valued and understood. Your time is recognition that they’ve got a lot on their plate and that you appreciate all they do.

Offer Encouragement

Many parents struggle to find enough time to make dinner and get their kids to school; time is not a resource many of us can offer. If this sounds like you, consider doing something simple that offers verbal recognition of a teacher’s good work. Send a simple note or card to school with your student to deliver. Specifically, call out what you appreciate about the teacher. For example:

• “Seeing Shelby’s improvement in math this year has been so heartening. I know it’s because you take the time to explain things until she understands.”
• “Thomas has never loved being at school so much. You create an enriching classroom environment, and we notice.”

A career educator recently shared that, while gifts and trinkets are great, she has kept every note from every student over the years. These heartfelt reminders have inspired her to keep going when the teaching gets tough.

Host a Fundraiser

School fundraising is likely not the first place your mind goes when you think about ways to support your teacher. But consider that teachers reported spending over $500 annually on school supplies, according to a Scholastic survey. As a job that traditionally pays lower wages, teachers may feel most supported when you help them keep more in their wallets.

With turnkey school fundraising programs, hosting a fundraiser has never been easier. Big Fundraising Ideas has dozens of exceptional product and brochure school fundraising ideas to help you help your teacher. A school fundraiser has the potential to make an impact on the entire faculty by ensuring teachers don’t have to pay out of pocket for necessary classroom supplies. This means less stress about making ends meet and more attention to quality education for your children.

Author Bio

Clay Boggess has been designing fundraising programs for schools and various nonprofit organizations throughout the US since 1999. He’s helped administrators, teachers, and outside support entities such as PTAs and PTOs raise millions of dollars. Clay is an owner and partner at Big Fundraising Ideas.