Celebrating Teachers

As a teacher, I know how important it is to work to help each child I interact with, every day I’m on the job. Recently, a parent came in to snap a photograph of me with her child, and I realized just how important my role as a teacher is. I decided to spend some time reflecting on the years I spent in school and rifling through old photographs and yearbooks.

While certain teachers and classes have faded, others stick with me in truly profound ways. My 7th grade English teacher, Mrs. V-J, had all sorts of memory tricks to help us remember when to use quotation marks, what the state of being verbs are, and even how to define “onomatopoeia.” While it sounds amusing, those things always stuck with me, and those same middle school tips were put to good use as I worked to earn my Bachelor’s degree, and I even use them now as a professional writer.

Everyone has had teachers that have touched their lives, for better or worse. Whether it was the high school teacher who challenged you in ways even your college professors didn’t, the teacher who made you laugh every day even when you were depressed, or simply the teacher you remember because of her particular “unique” way of dressing, these teachers are worth celebrating and remembering in your scrapbooks. Think of how many times you asked your own parents what their teachers were like when they went to school. Wouldn’t it be great if you had the scrapbook pages to show your own children when they ask you the same question?

Finding the Photographs
Most likely, the biggest challenge you’ll face once you decide to scrapbook is finding the right combination of photographs and memorabilia to include on your scrapbook page. If you still have them (assuming you were issued them in the first place), the best place to start is your stack of yearbooks. Simply flipping through them will jog your memory and likely help you recall things you didn’t realize you remembered. For example, I knew from memory that Mr. Gills was my favorite 8th grade teacher, mostly because he was so incredibly silly and intensely funny, and always made me laugh, even in the midst of a really difficult year. I had many memories of his class, but it wasn’t until I read his inscription in my yearbook that I remembered our mini-golf game from our 8th grade class trip. In many cases, yearbooks will be your primary source of photographs as well.

When researching this article, I was lucky enough to uncover a stack of photos I took during junior high. But I still didn’t have a photo of Mrs. V-J, a teacher I truly wanted to celebrate in my scrapbook, so I turned to my yearbook. After a quick scan and a few minutes in Photoshop, I sent the photo to my printer and was ready to go. While the yearbook will often provide only lower quality images, it’s still a great resource, especially if you have no other photos to work with.

If you don’t have a yearbook, or the quality is such that you don’t want to work with it, and no other photos are available to you, there are still plenty of ways to celebrate your teachers. Consider the following:

• Use a photo of yourself at the age you had the teacher you’re describing, and talk about the teacher in your journaling.
• Skip the photo completely, and simply include your journaling with some fun patterned papers.
• Use your school logo or a photo of your school building.
• If the teacher you’re thinking of is still teaching, consider checking to see if there is a photo available on the school’s website. This can be great for college professors, or if you are a young scrapper working with teachers from just a few years ago.

Putting it all together
The most important part of a page like this is the journaling, so be sure to take the time to truly capture why the teacher was so special to you. Consider listing your favorite memories with that teacher, the lessons he or she taught you that you still use today, or describing a particular assignment or experience that truly changed you.

Our scrapbooks celebrate so many of our relationships: our husbands and boyfriends, our children, our parents, aunts, uncles, close friends, and even just our work acquaintances and casual friendships. Why not take some time to celebrate the people that helped shape your mind, and in those rare cases, even your heart? Years from now, you’ll be glad that those memories are on paper for your children to see, and simply just for yourself, to help you remember and celebrate where you’ve been, and who helped you out along the way.

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