Oi-Yan Chung: Giving Thanks to Our Teachers

Oi-Yan Chung shares about her experience with teachers and volunteering at her son’s school.

As summer comes to a close, classrooms across the Bay Area will soon fill with the sounds of students returning for another school year. While families are shopping for backpacks and notebooks, I’m thinking about the people waiting on the other side of those classroom doors: our teachers.

I gained a new appreciation for educators when I volunteered in my son’s elementary school. Seeing a classroom from the inside showed me just how demanding the job really is. Teachers need endless patience, creativity and the ability to adapt to whatever the day brings. Nothing demonstrated that better than the pandemic, when they pivoted to online learning almost overnight, and had to find new ways to keep students learning through uncertainty and isolation. 

What many people often don’t see is what happens after the school bell rings. Teachers spend evenings planning lessons, weekends preparing activities and often their own money buying supplies to make their classrooms welcoming places for children. Most of us can name one teacher who changed our lives. In my case, it was my fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Curtis. My family had just arrived in this country as immigrants, getting acclimated in a new culture. 

Mr. Curtis didn’t just teach math and reading. He welcomed us with kindness, helped my family navigate through difficult early years, and assured me that I belonged here. At a time when I doubted myself, he believed in me. More than 40 years later, we still keep in touch, and he has become a treasured family friend. 

As another school year begins, I hope we all take a moment to thank the educators who shape young minds. The greatest lessons they teach aren’t always found in textbooks. They’re found in the compassion they show, the confidence they inspire, and the lives they quietly change every single day. With a Perspective, I’m Oi-Yan Chung.

Oi-Yan Chung works at a garden-based education nonprofit organization in Mountain View.