Teacher Appreciation – Part 1

by Jason Byassee, May 2, 2014

Jason Byassee

May is Teacher Appreciation month. It is a good time to reach back out to teachers who influenced and blessed and loved us well. It is also a good time for our church to think about the God-given goodness of the vocation of teaching. Each week in May we’ll interview one of our teachers about their work and the ways they find God in it. I hope we’ll all learn more about the richness of the body of Christ of which we are all a part.

Katie Mauldin Matthews

What got you into teaching?

My parents were in education for over 40 years. My earliest memory is sitting at the dinner table listening to my parents share stories about their classrooms. I knew that I would be sharing those same stories with my own family one day. My parents never led me to believe that it was an easy career. It would not be rewarded with money, but in my students’ successes.

As a student, I was surrounded by good teachers. Mrs. Kluttz, my sixth grade teacher, changed my outlook on what makes a teacher outstanding. I was suddenly held accountable for my own learning and was, for the first time, truly excited about school. She cared about our thinking process, answered questions with questions, and knew her students as individuals and formed meaningful relationships with them. In a very short time, teachers can have a lifelong effect.

Creating relationships with my students and their families has become the foundation of each school year. I know them and they know me. We are accountable to each other. I encourage my students to challenge each other to be better people. I see such growth throughout the year as my students become wise decision makers and understand the effect their actions have on others. It is not an easy task to teach students to question, respect others’ thoughts, construct creative solutions, and realize that what they learn is their responsibility. Creating a classroom that focuses daily on citizenship and academics benefits each student and our society.

Tell me about a teacher you admired.

I admired the teachers who made me work hard. It helped me develop my self-confidence doing something I doubted I could do, but with the encouragement of a teacher, I did my best and worked hard–even if I failed the first time.

I am amazed every day by my colleagues. They are selfless. Teaching is a tireless job and at times, thankless. My fellow teachers give of themselves daily. They offer endless
support to other teachers and creative ideas to enhance instruction.

How does your faith weigh into your work as a teacher, since obviously it shouldn’t explicitly do so in a public school setting?

The blessing and the curse of being a teacher is that everything is temporary. The group of students that you wish you could teach forever, you only get for 10 months. Parents who are supportive of you and their own children–10 months. Colleagues and administrators who make going to work fun and rewarding, similarly short-lived. These blessings make the challenges bearable. Policy makers who are on a two-year cycle, students who challenge you at every turn, parents who want you to be their child’s other parent instead of their teacher or who want it all to be easy–I’ve lost sleep over those. But God grants me so many blessings that the challenges that come my way are easier to handle. Trust me, there is a lot of prayer in school. Ask any teacher the week before spring break, the day after Halloween, the night before a new school year, or EOG testing, or parent teacher conferences, or on mornings when you run out of coffee or afternoons when chocolate is scarce. There are also prayers of thanks when a child has donated food to take home, when a local business gives warm coats, when a child finally gets it, when a parent surprises by showing up for a school event, when you get that needed hug from any of your students, when the school year ends and you see how you helped mold and shape students into who they are supposed to be.

Katie Mauldin Matthews teaches at Valle Crucis Elementary School and was Watauga County’s Teacher of the Year in 2012-2013.