This is what teachers work for: knowing they made a difference in the lives of students.
Have you thanked a teacher lately?
I have every single note that a parent has sent me over the years and every card that my students, once old enough to actually write (i teach pre-) has sent me years later. I have my entire fridge covered in notes and some of my kitchen cabinets as well, along with class pictures from every year I have been in my current school.
I have one family who send me pictures of the four of their children who have passed through my class. I have one more coming next year.
No amount of money can give me the feeling that those cards and pictures and notes give me.
When my students come back to my room and tell my current pre-k children what they did when they were in my class and how important it is to listen and pay attention, I want to cry.
The people who think that carrots and sticks are the answer don’t understand that some people have callings and others just get a job.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I keep a binder with students notes and parent letters. I bring it out on those days when you question why you drove to school that morning. My favorite is a Christmas card in which the student wrote that they did not mean to be corny but my classroom was like the magic school bus to her (I teach history). I cried on that one.
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We become teachers for the rewarding feeling we get from touching childrens life, not for the money. If that feeling is stripped from us, what or who will be left?
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I have a shoe box like that. I imagine we all have such a collection to get through tough times.
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Hey one of my former students just gave the Rockefeller Institute, Northeast section, presentation on the Presidential Directive on Sub-Saharan Africa at the White House last week. She is studying Public Health at the University of Rochester and had an internship at the Rockefeller Institute this summer. She came from Togo in 4th grade and learned time and basic reading in 5th grade. She struggled through middle school where she was told she had a low IQ and learning problems to fight that perception to get a full scholarship into college. Shows how racist and intolerant education can be towards students with other languages and from other countries and how much she fought it to be regarded as intelligent. Students from Africans countries struggle with American perceptions that Africa is somehow a country and homogenous in population. Their countries are barely known or even acknowledged. She went through a lot to get where she is and still encounters prejudicial perceptions everyday. She intends to get a Ph.D. in the future. I’m still close to her family and siblings. She shares her experiences on Facebook and I’m proud of her.
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And you should be proud of her and yourself! What an amazing story!
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I may not have saved the notes, cards, etc. over the years, but I do have knick-knacks, pins, scarves, a shawl a grandmother made for me, in various places. I can tell you who they are from, too!
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I have a folder with all of my notes and momentos that I call my “ego folder”. When my ego is feeling battered and I’m wondering why I’m doing what I’m doing, I pull it out and refresh myself.
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I keep the notes, cards, gifts, photos that students and parents have given me through the years. One of the best writing exercises that I had my students participate in was writing a thank you letter to someone in the school (teachers, custodian, cafeteria worker, anyone but me) telling them thank you and why they made a difference to the student and I gave them to the teachers. Once teacher, after reading a letter from a student, was so concerned that a student might be suicidal because the teacher has never received a letter from a student thanking him. I reassured the teacher that the letter that he received was legit and that the student was indeed expressing his gratitude.
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I also have a binder, and after 28 years of teaching, it is full!:) There is nothing like the feeling of a student, whether it’s one year or 10 years later, coming back to tell you the effect you had on them! That’s my incentive!
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I have a “good stuff” email folder. Anytime I get a funny or appreciative email, I put it in the folder and when I have a bad day, I read the emails and they brighten my day.
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I have a drawer full of notes and pictures from elementary through high school thanks and they were my motivation to write my own adult thanks to 3 of my teachers. The adult perspective (and a career teaching) certainly gave me lots of material. I never heard back from any of them (one is deceased) but they were truly game-changers for me and those letters were well deserved.
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On the other end of it, I have been make it a point in recent years to look up some of my own influential teachers to express my gratitude, many of whom have recently retired.
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One of my prized possessions is a photo album put together by my Spanish 5 class (19 students, some who had the misfortune of having me for 4 years in a row, and I mean misfortune because I think their learning of Spanish would have been better served by having a variety of teachers) the last year I was at my prior school. They were graduating and they knew that I was being railroaded out of the school for standing up against the testing mania.
On the last day they decorated the room, brought in goodies, one a giant cookie written with something I had said in class that they thought was humorous. One day that year a student asked me how to say “pimp” in Spanish, pimp being one of those terms that teenagers like to use. I turned to our only native speaker in the class and said “¿Cómo se dice pimp en español?” For some reason they got a real kick out of that and that is what the girl, who worked at a cookie kiosk, had decorated the cake with-still have a photo of it in my class and current students ask about it. Hey, at least I learned how to say pimp in Spanish-something I’d never really had a need to use prior to that day.
I tried reading the photo album, it contained photos, pictures, drawings and everyone had written something to me, thanking me, etc. . . , but I couldn’t make it through the first pages without tearing up. They were kind of surprised to see a big burly bearded guy tearing up but that’s how it was (and is now when I think of it). And when someone tells you that you should never hug a student tell them they’re wrong. That day all of my students game me a hug or a handshake as true signs of appreciation which went both ways as far as I was concerned. And I know a couple have gone on to continue studying Spanish and even living abroad, how great is that!
Yes, I need an incentive bonus to make me teach better! Those who suggest so are shallow and base and know not of which they speak.
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