Wednesday, May 6, 2009, is Hump Day for our national Teacher Appreciation Week, a week we appreciate only on weekdays — May 4 to May 8 — according to the Yahoo note which informed me of such week last night.

So I arose this morning not with the alacrity, wit, and wide smile of some of my favorite educators; rather, I experienced an acute anxiety attack as I understood I had not yet done enough to appreciate teachers this week.

This then I say unto thee educators, professors, teachers, rabbis, and mentors throughout the land:

1. Mad props to all teachin’ fools and countryfolk! This for y’all; we kickin’ it old school 24/7, K through 12.
2. And I’d like to send a special shout out to the teachin’ peeps in my life– family, friends, coworkers, and classmates!
3. I proclaim that before we try to hold teachers accountable, we need to reduce class size, improve classroom funding, and support our educators for fifty-one other weeks this year while we hold politicians, parents, and businesspeople accountable. (I admit you’ve heard that kind of thing before.)
4. Oprah loves teachers and so do I! I am experiencing transmogrification; I am becoming one who says, “I love Oprah!” And then I shriek down the aisle, receive her full-body embrace, and whisper in her ear, “Oprah, let’s do a show where you invite teachers to get the new car, and let them choose between a black BMW, pink Caddy, and a Prius.”
5. I remember a fun T-shirt from my youth, “Teachers do it with class,” and I feel it is a pity we see too many national stories today about trolls, cougars, and other pervs on the prowl taking a too-sincere approach to that independent clause. (Author’s note: I do not love criminals who happen to work as teachers.)

Please, party people, if you see a teacher this week, do not merely offer a hug or a thank you.  Help out the poor educator by grabbing half a stack of her papers and grading a few. Better yet, offer a shoulder massage or buy lunch!

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Alex Kudera

Alex Kudera's Fight For Your Long Day (Atticus Books) was drafted in a walk-in closet during a summer in Seoul, South Korea and consequently won the 2011 IPPY Gold Medal for Best Fiction from the Mid-Atlantic Region. It is an academic tragicomedy told from the perspective of an adjunct instructor, and reviews and interviews can be found online and in print in The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Inside Higher Ed, Academe, and elsewhere. His second novel, Auggie's Revenge (Beating Windward Press), and a Classroom Edition of Fight for Your Long Day (Hard Ball Press) were published in 2016. Kudera's other publications include the e-singles Frade Killed Ellen (Dutch Kills Press), The Betrayal of Times of Peace and Prosperity (Gone Dog Press), and Turquoise Truck (Mendicant Bookworks). When he's not reading or writing, he frets, fails, walks, works, and helps raise a child.

Latest posts by Alex Kudera (Posts)

• Back and Broke in Philly - June 18, 2017
• An Interview With Rebecca Schuman - April 13, 2017
• A Poor Man’s Christmas - December 25, 2016
• Excerpt from Auggie’s Revenge - December 2, 2016
• The Writer’s Parents - September 18, 2016

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