Good morning–yesterday was shopping and straightening house and being exhausted.  Today is more cleaning and getting it together.  Not my favorite time consumption but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Today is National (USA) Teacher’s Day  “The origins of National Teacher Day are murky. Around 1944 Arkansas teacher Mattye Whyte Woodridge began corresponding with political and education leaders about the need for a national day to honor teachers. Woodridge wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt, who in 1953 persuaded the 81st Congress to proclaim a National Teacher Day.”   http://www.nea.org/grants/55161.htm

“Students often show appreciation for their teachers with gifts or writing thank you cards. The National Education Association describes National Teacher Day as “a day for honoring teachers and recognizing the lasting contributions they make to our lives”   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teachers’_Day

In the US:  “From colonial times and into the early decades of the 19th century, most teachers were men. There were, of course, career schoolmasters, but, especially in smaller and rural schools, the people who stood in front of the classroom might well be farmers, surveyors, even innkeepers, who kept school for a few months a year in their off-season… The more educated and ambitious schoolmasters were young men who made the schoolroom a stepping-stone on their way to careers in the church or the law. ” http://www.pbs.org/onlyateacher/timeline.html

“…They viewed school keeping as temporary work. The defection rate among teachers undoubtedly exceeded 95% within 5 years after entry. Women taught briefly as adolescents before establishing their own households and families as young adults. Young men taught while preparing for other careers–as ministers or lawyers, perhaps–or during agriculture’s slow season. Teaching was transient work in America. The rewards were too low, the work brief and seasonal,…”  http://www.wakingbear.com/archives/a-history-of-teaching-in-america-as-told-by-those-who-know.html

Teacher’s today:

• Gender: 70% …female, 30% …male
• Age: 10% …under age 30,
• 21% …31-39,
• 27% …40-49
• 42% …over age 50
• Race: 87% … white,
• 13% …classified … racial minority
• Region: 23% …Northeast,
• 21% …Southeast,
• 27% …(Midwest)
• 29% …West
• School Level: 50%  teach elementary
• 25% teach  middle /junior high schools,
• 24% teach  senior high schools and
• 50% teach  combined secondary schools
• School System Size: Based on student enrollment,
• 28% teach  large school systems (over 25,000 students),
• 46% teach medium school systems (3,000-25,000 students)
• 26% teach in small school systems (under 3,000 students)
• School Community: Based  teachers’ descriptions,
• 28%  in urban schools,
• 33%  in suburban communities
• 40% in small town or rural areas;
• minority teachers (58%) are more likely than white teachers (23%) to report teaching in an urban area
• http://education-portal.com/articles/Teaching_in_America_The_Lives_of_Todays_Public_School_Teachers.html
• THANKS TO ALL OF YOU OUT THERE
• May all your journeys bring you to a happy, healthy destinations full of love and caring where you really belong.