Yesterday was National Teacher Appreciation Day! Thank you teachers!
Do you know the origins of National Teacher Day? It is believed it began in 1944. An Arkansas teacher, Mattye Whytte Woodridge was writing to political and educational leaders asking for a national day for teachers to be honored. One of her letters made it to the desk of Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1953, Mrs. Roosevelt worked with groups like National Educators Association (NEA) to convince congress that there should be a national teacher day.
It took decades for congress to declare the first National Teacher Day on March 1, 1980, and it was only for that year. But a movement had started to make it an annual thing with NEA on the first Tuesday in March. In 1985, the NEA Representative Assembly voted that the first Tuesday in March would be National Teacher Day. Then, the National Parent Teacher Association decided to take this a step further and decided the first full week of May would be Teacher Appreciation Week.
To learn more about Mattye Whytte Woodridge and the history of National Teacher Day, check out this blog post: