What Teachers Make: A Pro Teacher Moment By Taylor Mali

This video already went viral and with the school year soon coming to a close I thought it might be appropriate to share this with you today.

Think back to your childhood. You may have been lucky enough to have a couple teachers who really meant something to you.  I was fortunate to have a handful.  Long after I left elementary, middle and high school I stayed in touch with many of my teachers.  I would go back and visit them in Detroit or speak for a career day.  I considered them my friends long after my school years.

A good teacher treats everyone fairly but not necessarily the same.  Different students need different things to learn material.  A really good teacher spots that and can zero in on it.  My sister-in-law was a teacher, recently returned.  I imagine she was one of the terrific ones because some of her students still stay in contact with her.  A really good teacher fills you up with knowledge, builds up your self esteem, and makes you more independent. Maybe in the same way a parent would nurture you in familial ways.

Well, this teacher, Taylor Mali, was at a party when another party goer, an attorney, began to insult his chosen profession.  His response?  A pitch perfect poem!

Each person's sense of an honorable profession is their own idea, motivated by money, sowing into a young life, fame, whatever.  But for me?  A teacher is one of the most, if not the most, honorable profession we have.  Teachers have the ability to open young minds, change young minds, and teach young minds things they may have never thought about before.

So here's to teachers everywhere, maybe you never heard these words before, so hear them today.  What you do matters!

***more of the story...A few years back, Taylor Mali went to a New Year's Eve party where a condescending young lawyer insulted him and the entire teaching profession.  Teachers were so overworked, disrespected, and underpaid, the lawyer argued, that anyone who would choose to become a teacher must be of questionable intelligence and therefore shouldn't be allowed to teach in the first place.  He concluded his harangue by taunting Mali:  "Be honest.  What do you make?"

In response, Mali wrote a funny, hard-hitting, and pitch-perfect poem in defense of teachers that instantly went viral on the Internet, was seen by millions on YouTube as Mali performed it, and launched a proudly pro-teacher movement.  Furthermore, the poem has directly inspired nearly a thousand college students to become teachers.