This week I want to talk to you about filling buckets; specifically filling teachers’ buckets. Let me tell you a story …

Back in December, I agreed to volunteer at the school for a few hours. They were looking for parents who would supervise 4th and 5th grade classes for a few hours so that the campus could do a Christmas luncheon for its teachers. The students would be watching a movie or playing board games. Basically, make sure no one gets hurt. I figured as a seasoned mom of five with vast coaching and Scout leadership experience, how hard could it be? Those are what is known as famous last words folks. Bless my ignorant little heart!

Apparently, there is some unwritten rule amongst the 10-11-year-old crowd that says when the teacher leaves the room, try to test the limits of whichever adult is left in charge and if you can find said person’s last nerve then don’t just step on it, stomp on it!

I was determined that I was going to accomplish what I had set out to do. Those teachers were going to have an uninterrupted luncheon and all students would arrive at the end of their school day uninjured and accounted for.

Eventually, the students realized that I was not going to relinquish control of the room to their antics and other than the noise level that rivaled a rock concert and a few repeated instructions, they decided they would be better off enjoying our time together than joining me in a war of wills. We played a few board games and several exhausting rounds of freeze tag (where I ran more in an afternoon than I did 2021 in its entirety).

While most of the students caved fairly easily, two young men really tried to give me a run for my money. At first it felt intentional – test the limits of the lady with the deer-in-the-headlights look on her face. However, after a little time passed, I could tell that it wasn’t completely intentional. As much as I needed their compliance, they needed my support.

We all successfully made it to the end of the day without my calling for help. I walked out of that school drop-dead, bone tired. I decided teacher hours must be something like dog years and they aren’t an apples-to-apples comparison to real life hours. I walked to my car with new gratitude for my job as an accountant and new respect for the teachers of the world.

The story should end there. That was a good lesson for me on how big of shoes someone must fill to be a teacher these days. But, I had more to learn.

Fast forward a few weeks. I was at Brookshire Brothers picking something up (because if I didn’t go to the store every single day would I even be a real mom?). As I walked out to my truck, I heard someone shouting, “Lady, hey lady!” “Ma’aaaaammmm,” “Ma’am over here!” Figuring I left my debit card behind (or maybe even one of my kids), I turned to see if someone was trying to get my attention and sure enough someone was.

It was one of the young men who needed me extra that day. It warmed my heart that he remembered me and wanted to say hello. I quickly crossed the parking lot to visit with he and his grandfather.

I said hello and his grandfather replied, “Sorry for the hollering. He couldn’t remember your name, but he was adamant that he wanted to say hello to you. He said that you were cool.”

Not going to lie, I felt like I had just won the Olympics or completed open heart surgery when I heard that. Wow! What a tremendous feeling of accomplishment! I worked my rear off that day to fill a need that student had while still providing for the rest of the classroom. It exhausted me. I was mentally done that day, but in that one moment in the grocery store parking lot I knew why the teachers do what they do. That one small gesture by one little boy renewed me in a way I couldn’t describe.

I think that is the bigger lesson I was meant to learn. We all acknowledge that teachers work hard. We all admit that teaching isn’t a calling for everyone and that we respect those who are called to help guide our babies. And we assume our gratitude for their roles in our children’s lives is known. We send in gifts for the required holidays and recognize Teacher Appreciation Week. We sign up for PTO and we send classroom donations when requested.

I’m certain that all of that is appreciated by the teachers, but what I think we aren’t getting, or at least I wasn’t getting, is that the second Wednesday of September and the third Thursday in February and the first Monday of May or any old average day of the week my kids’ teachers are drop-dead, bone tired and we need to be filling their buckets. Classrooms are crowded, pandemic craziness makes things harder, every single classroom has students who through no fault of their own, need extra. We need to make an intentional commitment to renewing our teachers’ spirits and that may even be more important than giving her a bottle of hand lotion at the holidays (P.S.: she gets hand lotion every year, several in fact. Up your game.)

Knowing how that innocent “he said you were cool” made me feel made me determined to deliberately fill the buckets off all the teachers in my world. A quick note of gratitude acknowledging their role in my child’s recent reading achievement, a small compliment in how creative the most recent math assignment was, seemingly nothing special at all. Just an acknowledgement that what they do every single day, no matter how tired they are, matters and that someone noticed.

This doesn’t mean our teachers aren’t going to go home mentally exhausted. They will. But if we can help renew them and remind them why they do what they do, we need to step up and do it. Fill their buckets. If you’re at a point in life where there are teachers in your world, I urge you to consider it a challenge.