What Teachers Need to Receive

The other night Kelli and I had the chance to attend the Mount Pleasant High School production of Mamma Mia. It was one of those evenings that leaves you smiling long after the curtain falls. The energy in the room was contagious—students singing, dancing, and clearly enjoying every minute of it. By the time the finale arrived, the entire audience was on its feet, clapping and swaying along to the music. For a moment, it felt as though everyone in the auditorium was part of the production, not just the students on stage.

What stirred me most, though, was the quiet pride that crept in as I watched. Some of the performers were swimmers we had coached over the years. Seeing them there—confident, joyful, completely at home on that stage—was deeply satisfying. You could sense the family atmosphere surrounding the whole production. Even the principal had a role, and the students welcomed her into it with genuine warmth.

During intermission and afterward, we ran into familiar faces—former students like Eric Hastings and Meredith Hooper, colleagues we had taught alongside, and parents whose children had once sat in our classrooms or swum in our lanes. The conversations were easy, full of laughter and shared memories. It was one of those small community moments that reminds you how far the ripple of teaching can travel.

Walking out into the evening air, I found myself reflecting on the many times over the years when students had filled me with that same quiet sense of pride. The relationships, the small shared victories, the unexpected moments of connection—those have always been some of the quiet gifts the work has given back over the years.

And as we were leaving, I noticed something I hadn’t named in a while.

I hadn’t done anything that day to earn those moments.

There were no papers graded beforehand, no lesson plans completed, no sense that I had finally caught up enough to deserve a pause. The joy of the evening was simply there, offered freely, and for a few minutes I allowed myself to receive it.

That, it seems to me now, is something teachers rarely give themselves permission to do.

The Pattern Beneath the Work

As I thought about that evening later, I realized that what moved me most was not simply the performance itself.

It was the reminder of how many years of teaching quietly lead to moments like that.

If you’ve spent time in a classroom, you come to understand how much of the work is built on giving—and not just in the obvious ways.

You learn to read the room before anyone says a word, to anticipate where confusion might settle in, to adjust your pace and tone in ways that often go unnoticed but make all the difference. You offer encouragement when it isn’t asked for, patience when it is tested, and a kind of steady presence that holds the room together even on days when you yourself feel less than steady.

Over time, this outward movement becomes second nature, and in many ways it becomes part of your identity as a teacher.

At its best, this kind of giving isn’t simply effort—it is an expression of calling, a way of showing up for something that matters deeply to us.

But there is also a quiet cost that can come with that rhythm, especially when it continues without interruption.

When giving becomes constant, receiving can begin to feel unfamiliar, even slightly uncomfortable, as though it requires justification.

A Quiet Insight from Psychology

That small moment outside the auditorium stayed with me longer than I expected, and it reminded me of something I often shared with my psychology students years ago.

Researchers have spent decades studying what allows people to remain engaged and alive in the work they do over long stretches of time.

Years ago, I often shared with my students the work of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, who studied what allows people to feel engaged and alive in their work over the long haul.

Their findings were not complicated, but they were deeply human. People tend to flourish when they experience a sense of autonomy in their work, when they feel competent and able to grow, and when they experience genuine connection with others.

You don’t need the framework to recognize the truth of it.

You feel it on the days when a lesson unfolds in a way that feels almost natural, when a student responds with something more than compliance, when a colleague’s presence lightens the load in a way that doesn’t need to be explained.

And you feel its absence as well, in a way that is often harder to name.

The work itself may not change, but the weight of it does—especially when the sense of return begins to thin out.

What April Begins to Ask

March, in its own way, asked us to notice what was costing us, to pay attention to the slow accumulation of effort that can quietly wear us down over time. (As I wrote about recently in “What Reawakens in March,” sometimes renewal begins simply by noticing where our energy has been going.)

April shifts that question, not by asking us to give more, but by inviting us to consider something we may not ask often enough.

Where is the return?

Not in a measured or transactional sense, but in a human one.

Where do you feel seen in your work? Where does your effort meet something that nourishes you and quietly reminds you why you said yes to this work in the first place? Where does the energy you extend outward find its way back?

Social psychologists have long noted that healthy relationships tend toward reciprocity. Over time there is usually a natural balancing of giving and receiving that allows a relationship to remain sustainable.

When that balance is disrupted for too long, strain is not far behind.

Classrooms—and the lives lived within them—are no exception.

Recognizing What Comes Back

The difficulty, of course, is that what comes back is rarely dramatic.

It does not arrive in ways that announce themselves clearly, and it is easy to overlook if you are moving too quickly to notice.

It may be a student lingering after class with a question that reveals a deeper level of understanding than you expected, or a moment of shared laughter that softens the edges of a difficult day.

These are the kinds of moments that quietly sustain us through the long middle of the school year, something I reflected on in *When the Year Feels Long.

Research by Barbara Fredrickson suggests that these small positive moments, when we allow ourselves to notice and absorb them, play a powerful role in sustaining our well-being—not because they eliminate the challenges of the work, but because they restore just enough balance to keep us from becoming overwhelmed by them.

The key, it seems, is not in creating more of these moments.

It is in allowing them to register.

The Practice of Receiving

This is where the shift becomes more personal.

Receiving, for many teachers, is not something that comes easily—not because it is unavailable, but because the habit of giving is so deeply ingrained.

When something does come back—a word of appreciation, a moment of connection, a small but meaningful success—there is often a tendency to move past it quickly, to minimize it, or to return immediately to the next task waiting to be done.

April does not ask for a dramatic change in that pattern.

It offers something quieter.

A willingness to pause, even briefly, and let what is being given back settle in.

Not to analyze it.

Not to measure it.

Simply to acknowledge it.

Enoughness

There is a word that feels particularly fitting in this season, though it is not always an easy one to accept.

Enough.

In a profession where expectations can expand without clear limits—and where the sense of more is never far away—the idea of enough can feel unfamiliar, even slightly out of reach.

But enough, as I’ve come to understand it, is not about lowering expectations or stepping away from the work. It is about recognizing that what has been offered, and what has been received in return, holds value as it is.

There is a passage that has stayed with me over the years, especially in seasons when the work feels heavy:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” — 2 Corinthians 12:9

There is something grounding in that word sufficient, a reminder that what sustains us is not always abundance, but often something quieter and more steady.

Reflection Prompts

• Where in your day do you notice even a small sense of return or renewal?
• What makes it difficult for you to receive appreciation or support?
• What does “enough” look like for you right now, as things actually are?
• Where might reciprocity already exist in your work that you have been overlooking?
• What would it mean to let something small be enough today?

Closing Thought

As Kelli and I stepped out of the auditorium that evening, the music from the finale still echoing faintly behind us, the crowd slowly spilled into the cool night air.

 Conversations drifted around us—parents praising the performance, students laughing with friends, teachers lingering for a few extra minutes before heading home.

It was a simple moment.

Nothing dramatic.

Just people leaving a school play on an ordinary evening.

And yet something about it stayed with me.

Because none of that pride, none of that joy, had been something I worked for that day.

 The moment was simply there.

Offered freely.

And for a few minutes I allowed myself to receive it.

Teaching has a way of training us to focus almost entirely on what we give—the energy, the patience, the attention, the steady presence that holds a classroom together day after day.

But every so often, the work gives something back: a former student’s smile, a shared memory, a moment of quiet pride that reminds you the years meant something.

Those returns are rarely loud.

They arrive quietly, often when we least expect them.

But they are real.

And sometimes the most important thing we can do is simply notice them… and allow them to be enough.

Because sometimes it is in those small returns that we are reminded—quietly, but unmistakably—that this work was never only about what we give.

It is also about what we are given back… and how those small returns keep the sense of calling alive.