SIGNS: COURTESY OF MARTHA EDWARDS
PACKAGE: WABENO/ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES
Martha Edwards’ first-grade students celebrate her birthday with lawn signs.

says Edwards. “How can they not? I’m in
their living room. They get to listen to me
all day long.” And, in first grade, “we all talk
about birthdays, all the time, and I said I’d
be halfway to 100 on my birthday,” she says.

That week in late February had been
particularly stressful, as Edwards’ school
was preparing to reopen the following week.

“I was so stressed,” says Edwards. “Just the
technology involved in teaching a hybrid
class is complicated.”
But the yard signs gesture “gave me so
much energy for that week,” says Edwards.

“It just energized me to jump into hybrid
learning. All the messages were so sweet,
so innocent and pure. It was the sweetest
thing ever.”
The Kind Word
“Any kind words, whether it’s a nice email
or anything, it makes a difference,” says
Edwards. “It gives me so much energy and
fuels me to keep going.”
My nonscientific study backs up Edwards’
claim. I sent a Google survey to all the
teachers who work at the school where I
work, then sent this survey to my teacher
friends nationwide. I posted on social media,
asking teacher friends about the best ways
they’ve been thanked and asking how they’d
like to be thanked this year.

The overwhelming answer, from nearly
every person who responded, recounted
some variation of this quote from Vicki
Shields: “Nothing is better than a note of
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