We all have that one teacher who made a difference in our lives. For me, that was Mrs. Dawson. Mrs. Dawson taught English to junior high students when I was growing up in Decatur, Ill., and to this day, I have her to thank for my grammar and composition background. Her style was traditional, as we diagrammed sentences littered with dependent clauses, learned every type of punctuation in the English language and studied authors who stood the test of time. She was old school, and I loved every minute of her class.
What she prided herself on most was her ability to take even the quietest kids in the class and help them avoid the most common phobia worldwide. Glossophobia, or the fear of public speaking, ranks more common than the fear of death (thanatophobia), spiders (arachnophobia) and heights (acrophobia). Every kid in the class would routinely be put on the spot to talk about something for two to three minutes. That’s a long time as a sixth grader, but by the end of my junior high career, I could stand in front of a group of people and tell them all about anything with confidence. We hated it at the time, but knowing now that I can topple a mountain that so many hate to even think about climbing is a point of pride.
If we thought about it for a few minutes, we could all come up with a story like that one about a teacher in our past who made a difference in our lives both back then and today. That’s why it’s so important to celebrate National Teacher Appreciation Week, slated for May 5-9 this year in Missouri. Sandwiched around National Teacher Day on Tuesday, May 6, National Teacher Appreciation Week allows us the chance to recognize the integral role that teachers play in ensuring that every student receives a quality education. If you have children at that age of life between pre-K and senior year, this is an opportunity to help them say thank you to that great English, math or agricultural science teacher in their lives. From physical education to social studies, teachers in our schools show up every day with the goal of building up the next generation through education.
Missouri Farm Bureau (MOFB) has a number of resources to support educators in this goal through our Promotion & Education department. To help educators effectively integrate agriculture into their curriculum, the MOFB Foundation for Agriculture distributes mini-grants to K-12 teachers statewide. A total of $12,000 is available annually, and the application process is simple. Just share your basic information, how you plan to promote agricultural literacy and how much it will cost by May 31, and your students could reap the benefits as soon as the fall semester.
In addition, our YouTube page features virtual field trips that take students around the state to view a number of Missouri’s top commodities and programs. All of this, and more, is available at mofb.org/education.
So, during the 2025 National Teacher Appreciation Week, join us in taking a moment to recognize the incredible impact that educators make every day. Perhaps you can reach out to your own Mrs. Dawson to say thank you. As the day-to-day life of an educator gets more and more challenging, a small token of gratitude can be the final exclamation point to the school year.
