by 2025-2027 Associate Member Zainab Jabak
Every morning before my students walk through the classroom door, I’ve already been thinking about them.
I wonder who didn’t sleep much the night before. Who is walking into school carrying the weight of something they haven’t told anyone about. I think about the student whose smile has slowly disappeared over the last few weeks, the one who is quietly grieving, the one who insists they don’t care but secretly longs for someone to notice them anyway.
Before I teach literature, I read the room.
That isn’t something you learn in a teacher preparation program. It isn’t written into curriculum guides or pacing calendars. It isn’t measured on state assessments or observation rubrics.
But it’s one of the most important things classroom teachers do.
Teaching has never been just about delivering content. Every day, educators become listeners, encouragers, mediators, counselors, advocates, and sometimes the only consistent adult a child has. We celebrate birthdays, attend performances, write recommendation letters, sponsor clubs, coach teams, and cheer from the sidelines because our students need to know that our investment in them extends beyond the classroom walls.
We remember their favorite books, their college dreams, and even the little things they casually mention in passing because those details tell students, I see you.
That is what showing up looks like.
It isn’t flashy.
It often goes unnoticed.
And it almost never appears on a job description.
Some days, showing up means scrapping an entire lesson because you realize your students need a conversation more than they need another assignment. Other days, it means pulling a student aside after class because something in their body language tells you they’re carrying more than they’re willing to say. Sometimes it means quietly slipping snacks into a backpack, finding winter clothes for a family, helping a senior complete a college application, or simply sitting beside a student in silence because words aren’t what they need.
The public often sees teachers for the six or seven hours they’re in front of students.
What they don’t see are the hours before sunrise preparing lessons, the evenings answering emails, the weekends grading papers, or the countless moments we spend replaying conversations in our heads, wondering if we said the right thing to a student who needed encouragement.
Our work doesn’t stay at school.
Our students don’t simply disappear when the dismissal bell rings.
We carry them with us.
I know I do.
There are students from years ago whose stories I still think about. I wonder how they’re doing. I celebrate their successes from afar. I mourn their losses. Teaching has a way of weaving people into your heart in ways that are difficult to explain unless you’ve lived it.
People often tell teachers to leave work at work.
I understand the intention behind that advice.
But teaching isn’t the kind of profession you can simply clock out of.
Not when your work is built on relationships.
Not when your greatest successes—and greatest worries—have names and faces.
Because we care deeply, we also carry deeply.
That’s why conversations about teacher wellness matter.
Unfortunately, teacher wellness is often reduced to individual acts of self-care. We’re encouraged to take bubble baths, practice mindfulness, protect our weekends, and maintain a healthy work-life balance. While those things certainly have value, they don’t address the deeper issue.
Burnout isn’t simply the result of teachers failing to care for themselves.
Burnout often happens because teachers spend every day caring for everyone else.
Somewhere along the way, wellness became another responsibility added to our already overflowing plates. It became one more thing teachers were expected to figure out on their own.
But wellness was never meant to be another task.
It should be something our educational communities intentionally cultivate.
Throughout my career, I’ve experienced moments where I questioned whether anyone truly understood what classroom teachers were carrying. I’ve also experienced the incredible impact that thoughtful support can have. When educators are given space to breathe, reflect, collaborate, and simply be human, something remarkable happens. They remember why they entered this profession in the first place. They return to their classrooms with renewed clarity, renewed purpose, and renewed hope. As I experienced during a teacher retreat, restoration wasn’t about escaping teaching—it was about being reminded that teachers themselves deserve to be seen, heard, and cared for.
That experience fundamentally changed the way I think about teacher support.
Support isn’t another inspirational poster hanging in the faculty lounge.
Support is trust.
Support is leadership that listens before it speaks.
Support is creating environments where teachers don’t feel guilty for asking for help.
Support is protecting planning time instead of constantly consuming it.
Support is recognizing that emotional labor is still labor.
Support is understanding that teachers cannot continually pour from an empty cup while pretending it’s still full.
As educators, we spend every day asking one important question:
“What does this student need from me today?”
Imagine if schools, communities, and educational organizations consistently asked teachers the very same question.
“What do you need?”
Not as a formality.
Not during Teacher Appreciation Week.
But as an ongoing commitment.
Because healthy schools are built by healthy educators.
Students flourish when teachers flourish.
The relationship has never been one or the other.
It has always been both.
As I prepare for another school year, I’m reminded that I will continue showing up for my students.
I’ll greet them at the door.
I’ll recommend books they’ll fall in love with.
I’ll celebrate their victories and help carry them through their setbacks.
I’ll continue believing that every child deserves to feel seen long before they ever feel assessed.
That’s who I am as a teacher.
But I also know that teachers cannot continue sustaining this work through passion alone.
Passion may bring us into education.
Purpose may keep us here.
But people sustain people.
So I leave you with the question that continues to shape my own reflection:
Who is showing up for classroom teachers?
Because when we invest in teachers—not just as professionals, but as people—we’re investing in every student who walks through our classroom doors.
And that may be one of the most important investments we ever make.
Image Credit: Ron Lach
