A few nights ago, I found myself at a retirement party for a teacher friend.
The room was loud in that familiar way—overlapping conversations, bursts of laughter, coats piled near the door. Someone lifted a glass to tell a story and got interrupted twice before finishing the first sentence. Teachers everywhere.
Some people had taught together for decades. Others had never met before that night. But it didn’t seem to matter. Within minutes, conversations deepened. People leaned in. Knowing looks passed across the room.
For a few hours, everyone let their guard down.
That was the part that stayed with me as I drove home—the collective exhale before people headed back to their classrooms, their routines, their steady care. The evening brought back memories of staff parties and after-work gatherings from earlier in my career. Those rare moments when teachers would speak honestly about how they were really doing. Not carefully. Not performatively. Just truthfully.
There was love in those rooms, even if we didn’t call it that.
Valentine’s Day and the quiet love of colleagues
With Valentine’s Day nearby, I’ve been thinking about how love actually shows up in education.
Not the greeting-card version.
The lived version.
Teaching has always been a deeply social occupation, whether we name it or not. Put people of different ages, backgrounds, and life stages into the same building—and something forms quickly. Teachers look out for one another. They share resources, stories, humor, and quiet encouragement. They soften one another when the work gets sharp.
Teachers become friends quickly because they are holding the same weight. (Refer to Teacher Voices II: What Teachers Are Saying This Year)
That shared responsibility creates a particular kind of love—one rooted in recognition. You don’t have to explain everything. A glance is enough. A sigh is enough. A joke lands because everyone knows what it took to get through the day.
At that retirement party, I could feel that love moving through the room.
Not loud.
Not sentimental.
But real.
The psychology underneath what we felt
What psychologists eventually put words to, teachers feel every day.
Attachment research—beginning with John Bowlby—reminds us that humans are wired for connection, especially in demanding environments. When people experience steadiness and trust, their nervous systems settle. Learning, creativity, and resilience follow.
Valentine’s Day makes this visible in schools. It highlights who feels secure and who doesn’t, who belongs easily and who hovers at the edges.
And teachers are the ones holding that emotional ground.
Sociologist Arlie Hochschild named this work years ago: emotional labor—the steady regulation of feeling in service of others. Teachers do this not only for students, but for one another. A quick check-in. A shared laugh. A quiet “You okay?”
By February, that invisible labor adds up.
Feeling worn down around this time of year isn’t a lack of commitment. It’s often evidence of care given faithfully.
Retirement, mentorship, and the long view
There’s something quietly magical about being retired and standing in a room full of teachers still in the thick of it.
Some of the people there were former students of mine.
Some were colleagues I once shared hallways with.
Some were people I’d never met—but who were clearly carrying the work forward.
At a retirement party, time collapses.
You suddenly see who people have become. Teachers holding classrooms. Teachers guiding younger colleagues. Teachers shaping students the way someone once shaped them. Growth, which usually happens too slowly to notice, becomes visible all at once.
Round and round we go.
Those of us who are retired didn’t just leave. We left traces—models, habits, ways of being. And I love believing that, in small, unmeasured ways, we helped others stay, grow, and become who they are now.
(Refer to –What It Means to Keep Showing Up in February)
A scripture thread for this moment
There’s a verse that feels especially fitting when you see the long arc of teaching:
“Let us not grow weary in doing good…” (Galatians 6:9)
Not because the results are immediate.
Not because the system always rewards it.
But because goodness practiced over time multiplies.
And there’s another line that belongs just as much in a faculty room as it does anywhere else:
“Love is patient, love is kind…” (1 Corinthians 13:4)
Patient love looks like mentoring.
Kind love looks like covering a class, listening after a hard day, reminding someone they’re not alone.
Gentle questions to sit with
You don’t need to answer these. Just notice what stirs.
- Where have you felt genuine camaraderie in this work, and how did it sustain you?
- Who helped you become the teacher you are now, even if they never knew they were doing it?
- How do you allow yourself to receive support from colleagues, not just offer it?
- What traces do you hope to leave behind, quietly, over time?
A closing word
Here’s what Valentine’s Day reminds me of now:
Teaching is built on love—but not the flashy kind.
It’s built on shared effort.
On community.
On people willing to show up for one another, year after year.
Whether you’re new to the work, deep in the middle, or nearing the end of your formal career, you are part of a long, living chain. What you do shapes people you may never fully see.
And if, someday, someone gathers in a room and laughs and tells stories because of the work you did—
That will be love, too.
Quiet.
Durable.
And enough.
