My first week of teaching, a fellow teacher handed me a yellow file folder labeled “Smile File.” She said, “This is your WHY.” Over the years, I have added many items to the file, cards, photos, booklets, hand-drawn pictures and notes. Each desk I sit behind holds that file. This is my WHY. There are many days in the school year when a teacher is mentally and physically just tired, just frustrated or sometimes even feels unappreciated. That’s when the smile file comes in. There are long days when just the thought of the file brings a smile to my face.
There are many good and great teachers in my past, as well as some that I just did not mesh with. The great ones made me feel great and capable of great things. I hope I have been a great teacher to some. The good teachers did their job, they provided me with knowledge of their subject. The others, I am sure, thought they were good- and they were probably great to other students, just not me. That is what teachers and parents and students need to understand. We cannot be great to all students- but all students should have some teachers that were great to them.
My yellow folder reminds me of the students, colleagues and parents who thought I was great, even when I didn’t. Some of my treasures include; a book entitled Balcony People by Joyce Landorf Heatherley given to me by a 4th grader many years ago (1993). A card from a parent thanking me for teaching her third kid and wishing me luck “with that one!” An index card with a watercolor illustration of a girl reading, simply signed “thanks!” A condolences card from a colleague after my father passed during COVID, reminding me that he would be proud of me. From 4th graders to seniors, from parents to colleagues, my smile file is full of 30 years of my WHY! It is full of hugs in a world that needs them!
“Kind words do not cost much, yet they accomplish much.” - Blaise Pascal, a great mathematician and physicist who knew a bit about pressure.
-Misty Yarotsky, FJH Science Teacher
