A Letter to a First Year Teacher: ME

Dear Lloyd (24 Years Old),

You are about to embark on one of the most rewarding, fulfilling, and uplifting experiences of your entire life. You have always wanted to be a teacher but you surely do not know how much you don’t really know. Thankfully, you are going to be mentored and coached by some of the greatest educators in the world. Rhonda Bell, John Tupponce, Michael Campbell, The Kirks, Krystle Barnes, Jennifer Zenos, and Robert Croston will give you the straight truth that will shape your career. They are going to be put into your life by God because your purpose will be to bring great education opportunities to those that have lacked the resources to receive it. You will work daily to inspire educators, parents, lawmakers, and most importantly students to give their all to improve the communities around you. 

The trouble is that you really don’t have any idea what you are doing. Sure, Shaw University has prepared you to become a better father, husband, and citizen but you don’t know anything about managing a classroom or writing a truly effective lesson plan. Pro Christo et Humanitate (For Christ and Humanity)is the official motto of Shaw U but it will ring true for your life overall. Your life is dedicated to the work God has placed upon you. He has put you in a place to love harder and fuss more because the world will need to know how important it is for our students to always come first. 

Education is not a job or a career. It is a way of life. You will eat, sleep, and breathe strategies for how to better serve the students of inner city communities. You will gain amazing relationships along the way and eventually become worthy of all the love God has placed in you. 

The best advice I can give you is to never lose sight of what your true purpose is. There will be times where you will be pulled from place to place but your heart will always be within the inner city. You will try to be everything to everyone but your homebased will always be the school you serve every day. 

In Chicago, you will learn what it truly means to love your fellow man. You will have an opportunity in two of the roughest neighborhoods within the city to cut your teeth with urban education. 

North Lawndale will be a place where you will fail worse than any other time in your life. You will feel like every day is worse than the last. You will be fired for your students not performing on the NWEA MAP. You will be coach by some of the best educators in the world. You will leave a thousand times better than when you arrived.

You will then spend the next 5 years within Altgeld Gardens where you will wrap yourself in the most loving community in the world. The friends you make there will be forever. You are going to meet the most amazing principal that will give you the opportunity necessary to take your career to the next level and will continue to mentor you through the trials to come. You will meet families you will never forget. 

I say all of this to you because you need to know that even though you think you are killing it right now you have so much more to learn. Don’t give up on being the best teacher you can be. When people tell you that it is crazy to leave your cushy job at Richneck Elementary for the inner city you have to listen to the little voice that says, ‘You have a greater purpose.’ 

Your journey will take you all over the world to help educators effectively facilitate students that don’t know how much they need a quality education. Bring the love of your family with you and always remember why you are at school on a Saturday when you don’t have to. It’s because you love the kids. 

Love,

Lloyd (36 Years old)

Principal

Thomas Carr Howe Community High School