Canfield Jack - Chicken soup for the soul : teacher tales : 101 inspirational stories from great teachers and appreciative students

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teacher Tales;

101 Inspirational Stories from Great Teachers and Appreciative Students by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Amy Newmark

Foreword by Anthony J. Mullen, 2009 National Teacher of the Year

Published by Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC www.chickensoup.com
www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2009 by Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

CSS, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and its Logo and Marks are trademarks of Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing LLC.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the many publishers and individuals who granted Chicken Soup for the Soul permission to reprint the cited material.

Cover illustration courtesy of iStockPhoto.com/procurator/ Evgeniy Ivanov. Cover photo courtesy of iStockPhoto.com/luminis. Back cover photo courtesy of Getty Images/Mark Wilson. Interior illustration courtesy of iStockPhoto.com/kemie

Cover and Interior Design & Layout by Pneuma Books, LLC

For more info on Pneuma Books, visit www.pneumabooks.com

Distributed to the booktrade by Simon & Schuster. SAN: 200-2442

Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication Data

(Prepared by The Donohue Group)

Chicken soup for the soul: teacher tales: 101 inspirational stories from great teachers and appreciative students / [compiled by] Jack Canfield, Mark Victor

Hansen [and] Amy Newmark; foreword by Anthony J. Mullen.

p.; cm.

ISBN: 978-1-935096-47-4
eISBN: 978-1-61159-142-2

1. Teachers--United States--Literary collections. 2. Teachers--United States--Anecdotes. 3. Teaching--United States--Literary collections. 4. Teaching--United States--Anecdotes. 5. Students--United States--Literary collections. 6. Students--United States--Anecdotes. 7. Teacher-student relationships--United States--Literary collections. 8. Teacher-student relationships--United States--Anecdotes. I. Canfield, Jack, 1944- II. Hansen, Mark Victor. III. Newmark, Amy. IV. Mullen, Anthony J., 1960- V. Title: Teacher tales

PN6071.T3 C45 2009

810.8/0921/3711 2009942318

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
on acidfree paper
16 15 14 13 12 11 10 03 04 05 06 07 08

~Why We Teach~

~First Year Tales~

~Learning from the Kids~

~Great Ideas~

~Thanks, I Needed That~

~That Was Embarrassing~

~Touched by a Student~

~The Teacher Who Changed My Life~

~Tough Kids~

~Reconnecting~

~Reflections on Being a Teacher~

A veteran teacher told me recently that she was considering leaving the teaching profession. I dont wake up with the energy I once had, she sighed. Its taking me longer to get dressed in the morning and thats not good for my students.

Sadly, this teacher is not alone. I have been meeting many teachers who are spending too much time getting dressed in the morning. Some no longer even bother to get dressed because they have left the classroom. But I had a nagging feeling that the arduous task of teaching was not the culprit responsible for sapping her morning energy.

Whats really causing you to want to leave teaching? I asked.

She paused for a few moments before responding. I feel that I work in a profession people no longer respect or value, she replied. My school measures the value of everything I do around test scores. I have never seen it so bad; each week I am being told a new way in which to raise test scores. I am slowly losing my ability to both teach and nurture my students.

What has become of the noble profession of teaching? From the perspective of an experienced teaching professional, the state of American education has become a data-driven system concerned more with standardized test scores than the social and emotional needs of children. A profession designed to better the human condition is losing its humane characteristics.

And that is why Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teacher Tales is such an important and timely book. Written by and for teachers, it is a different type of book because it does not try to promote a new method of pedagogy or try to reinvent the wheel. How refreshing. This book is about the heart and soul of teaching and why we have committed our lives to helping children.

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teacher Tales is filled with wonderful stories about teachers and children. Some of the stories will make you laugh and some of the stories will make you cry. A few will make you want to scream at an educational bureaucracy seemingly blind to the needs of children and teachers. You may get the urge to throw this book at a bureaucrat. Thats okay; just dont break the books spine.

When I was asked to write the foreword for this book, I needed to know if the book could reinvigorate teachers who are suffering from mental and physical exhaustion. Could it be used as a balm for the weary teachers I encounter while traveling across the nation? Chicken Soup for the Souls publisher, Amy Newmark, who has personally edited this book, quickly answered my question. Amy is a soft-spoken lady but when she speaks about the welfare of teachers her voice elevates to a higher octave. Amy stressed the need for a book that can inspire novice and veteran teachers alike, a book written by classroom teachers who know how to tell a meaningful tale. I left Amys office feeling reinvigorated and eager to share my excitement with colleagues.