In the #Savremenaatyourhome blog, the Principal of Primary School Savremena, Jasmina Franolić, wrote about how our teachers are hard-working, persistent, innovative and, most of all, good people, and how we should greatly appreciate their efforts to provide the students with top-quality online teaching.

Here is the Principal’s letter of gratitude to Savremena’s teachers in its entirety.

APPLAUSE AT 8 AM FOR THE HEROES IN THE EMPTY CLASSROOMS

These days, we are applauding doctors and medical staff. They heal the body when it becomes ill. Some of them heal the soul, when it becomes ill. And all of them deserve a big THANK YOU from us.
But today, I would like all of us to salute those teaching the soul how not to become ill, how to grow and love. The courageous teachers in front of the cameras, with digital tools in their hands and heads; our heroes in the empty classrooms. They are the ones I’m writing about today with a heart full of pride, as they have been my team for almost 30 years! The best team ever!

Who were the ones who left their house each day in the past month to record the best possible lesson for their students? Who were the ones who spent their nights preparing unforgettable virtual lessons? Who were the ones to welcome the students in the digital world in order to laugh with them and think of new solutions to life’s inequalities? Who asked their kids to go to another room so they could solve problems with other people’s children? The teachers with a capital T!

There is a time for everything. For doubt. For sin. For victory. And a time when great and humble people become visible to everyone. For decades, teachers were forgotten. People started saying how we don’t need them, how modern society will offer different education models and that children will find everything they need on the Internet.

That there is an endless ocean of information for us. But this ocean is too deep and the waves can become tempestuous, mixing the important with the unimportant and truth with lies. Sailing without a steersman can be fatal. Who is the one who will help the children read the signs, recognise deception, teach them to wonder, doubt, respect, believe, learn, and BE…people.

It’s not just the parents. The parents’ heroism in these times is a subject of another story; not all heroes can fit into a single story… The parents are primarily there to love… To protect and strengthen young people… But the time the kids aren’t spending with their parents or friends, they’re spending it with their teachers.

I know what my colleagues are doing these days and I’m proud of them. They are up until the small hours exploring new digital tools, creating quizzes for knowledge testing, making sure the students can reach them whenever they want, be it late at night or first thing in the morning, when rivers of emails are flowing from all over the place. This is a new experience which both sides are enjoying and one that nobody is allowed to spoil. If both sides are finding it slightly difficult, it means we’re on the right path. With lots of laughter, imagination and trust… the teachers and the students are learning about life from each other…

One should have seen all those excited faces when they meet on social networks, on the other side of the wall and restrictions… The joy… Trust and belief… A reason to fall in love with your calling forever! And a reason for a different kind of applause – at 8 AM for all the big-hearted heroes in the empty classrooms!

Jasmina Franolić, Principal of Primary School Savremena