Tuesday morning while I was sitting on the stage at Hartselle High School waiting for scholarships to be presented, I thought about all of the seniors who make up the 2016 graduating class and the teachers who have influenced their lives for the past 13 or more years. Most of these young people have been in school since kindergarten and many probably attended pre-K and nursery school. They have spent eight hours or more each day with an educator and even more if they played sports or participated in an extracurricular activity.

Many have spent more time with teachers than they may have even with parents, not in a bad way, but because of the long hours many have to work to support their children. The teachers have been there for the good times and bad, happy times and sad, and they were there, when after working so hard to get through to a child, the light finally came on.  Therefore, they knew the child understood and grasped the concept. Whether this be identifying colors and numbers in pre-K or analyzing engineering concepts as a senior in high school.

There are some who feel that teachers need to be held more accountable and even want to base their salary on test scores. Some even believe they know more about teaching than those who have been trained and educated and even have taught for many of years.

Most teachers, I would think, do not enter into the teaching field for the money or summers off. I think most enter this field because they feel they can make a difference in the lives of children. They desire to help them learn and develop in ways to become productive citizens. Most have a love for children and also of learning. With a combination of those two, a teacher is born.

Just this week I received a copy of a letter that had been sent to a local superintendent.

The mother was bragging about how her daughter had blossomed under a kindergarten teacher, after having a rough start at the beginning of the school year. However, the teacher assured the mother all was going to be ok. The words describing the teacher are amazing, patient, caring and wonderful. This mother is thankful for the teacher and appreciates what she has done to help her daughter.

Most of us had teachers or remember our children’s teachers who could be described using the same words. Those teachers made a lasting impression on our lives, and some were around long enough to make an impression on our children as well.

Too many times teachers have a thankless job, with many parents expecting them to perform miracles and deal with issues their children have. If a child has behavioral problems at home and cannot deal with them, I am not sure how one could expect a teacher to change them in the short time during the day, when they are in class.

Please join me in thanking our teachers and educators for what they do and the job they perform each day. They are a tremendous influence on our children and we need to give all the help we can as parents to help them achieve the goals of learning our children need. I envy that moment when you as a teacher see the light come on in a child’s eyes, when all of the work you have put into the lesson pays off. God bless our teachers.

Randy Garrison is the president and publisher of the Hartselle Enquirer.