Thought of the Day: October 15th, 2013

We Sometimes Never Know Just How Powerful of a Role We Play as Educators

I came across the following tweet (see below) this morning written by Brad Currie, a school administrator from Chester, New Jersey. Brad is the co-founder of #Satchat on Twitter, a fantastic weekly chat that covers a huge range of topics. I try my best to be involved in those chats, but with two young boys, Saturday mornings are often taken up with soccer, swimming, and other clubs that they belong to (and an occasional round of golf for me :)

There are so many amazing links that I come across on Twitter and trying to read them all is impossible as all experienced Tweeters know. Selecting which ones to open and read comes down to what motivates us as educators. I am always inspired by those amazing teachers who have such a powerful impact on their students. Of course, we all have influence and impact over our students, but we can all certainly recall those very special teachers that we had in the past that made a huge difference to us. A couple of years ago I wrote a blog post specifically about this here.

Anyways, I clicked on Brad's link and watched the short You Tube video about a teacher by the name of Albert Siedlecki. Although Mr. Siedlecki has no doubt positively influenced hundreds of students he has taught over 30 plus years of teaching, the video below explains in detail how he had a tremendous impact on one student in particular. It is absolutely worth the watch, so I encourage you to click on the link to see and hear the wonderful story. This is a perfect video on those low motivation days that we sometimes have as teachers. 

Think about all of the students we teach and have taught over the years. Hearing stories like Mr. Siedlecki's reminds us just how powerful a role we play as educators. We should never under estimate the value that our jobs hold. Hope you enjoy the video. Thanks to Brad Currie for sharing the link on Twitter.