Teacher Uses Inspiring Poem to Remind Students How Special Each of Them Are

A teacher is earning praise today after leaving a touching note for her students that has parents all over the world cheering and sharing her story.

A teacher at Bowen State School, located on the north coast of Queensland, Australia, welcomed her returning Year 4 students with some special gifts in a goodie bag and a poem. While the gifts are normal things any student would need for school (and some sweets), each gift carried a special meaning.

The teacher gave them each an eraser, as a reminder that “it is ok to make mistakes,” and that the teacher and students will “work and learn together, no matter what it takes.” The students received stickers, so they know “we’ll stick together and work hard as a team.”

There were also several more items the caring teacher shared with her students.

The poem was shared by the Bowen State School Facebook page on January 23. Since that time, it has been shared over 31,000 times and liked more than 13,000 times as of February 1.

The poem is just another reminder of the extra effort and sacrifices that teachers often make in their line of duty, which often hardly goes unnoticed in terms of respect and compensation.

For instance, in the U.S., teachers are paid an annual salary of just over $41,000 per year, according to 2014 research reported by The Guardian. The annual average salary in the U.S. that same year was over $44,500, over $3,000 more than what a teacher makes. Countries like Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, and South Korea all rate highly in terms of teacher salary versus average national salary.

Teachers are tasked with such an important role in a society by educating and informing the next generation of job creators and laborers. Providing a generous living wage to attract better talent to the profession has long been an argument of teaching advocates.

The teacher at Bowen State School who shared her inspirational poem is just one of many examples that help bolster that argument. See the full poem below.