American Education Week is coming up from November 12th to November 18th, are you ready to celebrate America’s educational system? Did you know that there even was an education week for celebrating? Me either, and I was a teacher in the public school setting for almost ten years. Too bad no one told me there was an entire week for celebrating education. I guess that is because every week should be spent celebrating education and the folks that do the educating!
This year’s theme for American Education Week is, Great Public Schools: A Basic Right and Our Responsibility. This year’s celebration will focus on how important it is that students, teachers, parents, school staff, and entire communities all work together to make our public school system the best that it possibly can be.
It is hopeful that this year’s American Education Week will also bring to the forefront that the United States needs to make sure all public schools are quality schools in which students are able to be successful.
The NEA (National Education Association) has offered some suggestions to teachers and schools on how to celebrate this important week. They suggest kicking off the week with something big and exciting so that all students are aware just what is being celebrated. Schools should send letters home with students a week or two before the actual week, this will keep parents informed just what American Education Week is and why it is important.
The NEA also suggests having different activities throughout that week after the kickoff to celebrate education. It suggests having a Invite Parents to School Day that week, having a day to celebrate all of the education support professionals, have an educator for a day in which people from the community come and observe just what a day as a teacher is like. The NEA also suggests schools have a day for substitute teachers to be honored.
Why not ask your child’s school what they are doing to celebrate American Education Week? Maybe they don’t even know about it, and if not, why not share with them what you have learned here.