For the Love of Teachers!

If you’ve ever walked into a classroom and thought, “These kids are monsters,” congratulations—you’re either a teacher or have considered joining a cult. Either way, welcome to the frontlines of education: the underpaid, over-caffeinated, and emotionally resilient world of teaching.

This story begins in a small public school tucked somewhere between a crumbling Dunkin’ Donuts and a vape shop that definitely sells something illegal after 5 p.m. It’s the kind of school where the ceiling tiles look like abstract art, the fire alarm goes off if someone sneezes too aggressively, and the teachers? Saints. Slightly unhinged saints, but saints nonetheless.

One such saint was Ms. Vega, a seventh-grade English teacher with a pixie cut, unmatched sarcasm, and a collection of coffee mugs that could fill a museum wing. She once corrected a student’s passive-aggressive love letter in red ink and handed it back with a note that said, “Nice metaphor. Now leave her alone.”

Every day, she showed up 45 minutes early, armed with granola bars for hungry kids and fresh trauma from staff meetings. She taught Shakespeare like it was a soap opera and quoted Mean Girls while grading essays. The students adored her, even the ones who claimed to hate books unless they were TikTok comments.

One afternoon, the school announced its “Teacher Appreciation Week,” which is code for we can’t give you raises, but here’s a fruit cup and a pen that doesn’t work. Still, Ms. Vega smiled as the kids awkwardly handed her notes that said things like, “You cool even tho you old,” and “Sorry for throwing up during your lesson.”

Across the hall was Mr. Patel, the math teacher and low-key wizard. He could explain the Pythagorean Theorem using pizza slices and once convinced a kid that algebra was basically just Minecraft for your brain. He hadn’t taken a lunch break in seven years, mostly because his desk was a triage center for middle school drama and broken calculators.

One day, a student asked him, “Why do you even do this?” while pouring glue on another student’s shoe. Mr. Patel replied, “Because every once in a while, one of you little gremlins actually gets it—and that’s better than any paycheck.”

And then there was Ms. Chu, the art teacher. She had purple streaks in her hair, mismatched earrings, and a passion for glitter that should’ve required a hazmat suit. Her classroom was a safe haven. Kids who couldn’t focus in math found peace painting sunsets, and students with rough home lives knew they could cry into a canvas and be handed tissues that smelled like acrylic.

She never said “I love you,” but she showed it with every “Try again,” “Let’s talk,” and “Don’t worry—nobody notices the weird smell except me.”

But not all was sunshine and book reports. One winter, the boiler exploded during finals week, covering half the building in a fine mist of warm despair and asbestos. The district sent a single email: “Please continue to prioritize learning.”

Did the teachers quit? No.

They taught by flashlight. They wrote lesson plans in the parking lot. Ms. Vega duct-taped a poster over a hole in the wall and said, “Pretend it’s Narnia. Use your imagination.”

On the last day of school, the kids surprised the staff with a handmade banner that said, “THANK YOU TEECHERS!”—which, ironically, made Ms. Vega twitch. But she smiled anyway. Because even though it was misspelled and half the letters were backwards, it meant something.

It meant someone noticed. That even if society kept treating teachers like poorly paid babysitters with Wi-Fi, the kids still saw them as heroes—glitter-stained, emotionally exhausted, underappreciated heroes.

So if you’ve ever learned something that saved your life, made you laugh, or helped you grow, thank a teacher.

They do more than just grade papers.

They hold up the whole damn world with dry erase markers and pure spite.