May 7, 2021 — Here at the close of Teachers Appreciation Week — and the start of our weekend celebrating moms — I’ve gathered a few scattered thoughts I’d like to share.
It was after 11 years of teaching school music that I decided last fall it was time to change careers. As much as I now enjoy my job as Cardie Community Manager, that’s how much teaching still means to me … twice a week after work I put my teaching hat back on and tutor music students.
All my teacher friends say this has felt like the longest year of their careers — they feel over-worked, over-stressed and under-appreciated. So it felt good to hear our new Chief Marketing Officer Katie Bregenzer say that she’d thanked her son’s teachers this week with little gift bags filled with Cardthartic boxed notes. “They were fresh and fun and unexpected presents,” she explained. “Not too much and not too little for these caring educators who do their best for my kiddo.”
Appreciative moms like Katie get that these small gestures — done throughout the year, not just this one week — truly mean the world to teachers. If you’ve never regularly interacted with 200-plus parents, you may not realize that the vocal minority of Negative Nellies can sometimes drown out the positive, and a kind word from an appreciative mom really helps balance the scale.
A quote I read recently helped me see that all those amazing students and the thoughtful mothers (who are also teachers) behind them — along with the not-so-kind ones from whom I learned to have thicker skin — were all there to teach me. Zen teacher Joko Beck said:
Life always gives us
exactly the teacher we need
at every moment.
This includes every mosquito,
every misfortune,
every red light, every traffic jam,
every obnoxious supervisor (or employee),
every illness, every loss,
every moment of joy or depression,
every addiction,
every piece of garbage,
every breath.
Every moment is the guru.
To teachers, to mothers, to blessings in their many forms. Thank you, Cardies, for being one of mine. Enjoy today!
Felicia Elenum
Cardie Community Manager
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