Teacher Appreciation Week

A Teacher's Perspective

The teacher's lament is much the same as in any profession: overworked, overstressed, underpaid, and underappreciated.

According to the National Education Association (NEA), Mattye Whyte Woodridge, a teacher in Arkansas, began corresponding with education and political leaders around 1944 about honoring teachers with a national day. Woodridge wrote Eleanor Roosevelt and the first lady convinced Congress to proclaim a National Teacher Day in 1953. Several decades later, the NEA, along with its affiliates in Kansas and Indiana (and a local affiliate in Dodge City, Kansas) lobbied Congress to create a national day for teachers and was rewarded with March 7, 1980 as National Teacher Day (for that year alone).

Although an official day, the NEA continued to honor National Teacher Day on the first Tuesday in March until 1985. That year the National PTA established Teacher Appreciation Week as the first full week in May. The NEA Representative Assembly subsequently established that the Tuesday of that week be designated as National Teacher Day (making the actual National Teacher Day variable).

National Teacher Day is being observed on May 6 in 2008.

But is a week really enough to show our collective appreciation for teachers? Over the years, our teachers have taken on many roles in our lives, from guide to tutor, from mentor to advisor, from friend to confidant, from counselor to role model. They have given their time, patience, and support to millions of students. And they have helped parents shape generations.