After 2020, Teacher Appreciation Week more timely than ever

We get it. You’re busy in the spring with kids’ activities, home improvement projects and end of school events and wrap up.

Among all of the other things vying for your time, do not forget Teacher Appreciation Week this year.

Give a card. Send an email. Have your students create an animated thank you card. Or go bigger.

But please don’t forget all of the hard work our educators have been doing over the past year.

Here at NewBoCo, we would like to highlight just a few of the ways we have seen teachers in our programs innovate, pivot, and stay committed to their students.

We all know what happened beginning in March of 2020, and how education was drastically impacted. As NewBoCo worked to transition our educator programs for the summer, we needed to be aware of our participants’ stress and anxiety around their normal work — on top of the stress and anxiety some may already feel when starting to learn how to teach a new content area such as computer science.

Teachers should be given immense credit for supporting their students this year, and working to find ways to help students make progress, whatever that progress may look like.

In partnership with Code.org and others, we modified our workshops to be virtual, too. We also worked to build in support to help educators consider changes for how they may be teaching throughout the school year.

What I am most impressed by is how the 70 middle and high school participants this year still were open to learning during a pandemic that absolutely placed additional burdens on them.

They showed up for themselves and their students. They helped to build a virtual community with their cohorts. They shared their challenges and solutions with each other to support one another.

Most of all, they were engaged, innovative and supportive during a very difficult time.

Some shared resources they created for their classes so others could benefit or modify them again for their own needs. Much of the support was providing a safe space to share challenges and concerns or to cheer each other on through tough times.

Educators also had to support their students' morale on top of caring for themselves.

One teacher shared that she switched to having virtual students record themselves explaining their code so that she knew if they understood it.

She saw this improve her students’ understanding of concepts, and other teachers adopted the practice and plan to continue having students talk through their code even when they are in person.

Accidental improvements spurred by an unfortunate situation are the silver linings in this school year.

The support, creativity and passion were there before the pandemic, and they will continue to happen after. However, we must be sure to continue to thank our educators for their persistence and care.

We also want to thank ICR Future for its Show the Love campaign for educators in February. Check out its post for some additional ideas to thank a local educator.

Teachers should be given immense credit for supporting their students this year, and working to find ways to help students make progress, whatever that progress may look like.

Please take just a few minutes to share your appreciation with teachers May 3 through 7, or any time in May, because they deserve it and they need to hear it.

Samantha Dahlby is the director of K-12 education at NewBoCo in Cedar Rapids; samantha@newbo.co.