It is that time of the term for teachers all over Kenya; papers to mark, assessment reports to complete and the accompanying exhaustion that comes with end of term activities.

Disciplinarian, Dutch Uncle, Daytime dad/mum, coach, and confidant; there’s an accompanying fatigue that sometimes comes with being a teacher.

Teachers in the house do you relate?

Meet the tired teacher

courtesy: thewearyteacher.com

Haley Curfman aka #thewearyteacher, is a teacher from Oklahoma who loves her job and shares the ups and downs of her teaching life to the amusement of her social media followers.

In her words, the feeling at the end of a busy day with students is weary or “tired, worn out, exhausted, fatigued, sapped, dog-tired, spent, drained, done in, beat, ready to drop, worn to a frazzle, tuckered out.” She simply sums it up as TEACHER LIFE!

Inspired by other projects, Ms Curfman bought a plain white dress about three years ago and encouraged her 2^nd Grade students to showcase their creativity by writing, drawing and colouring on the dress.

This is how #thewearyteachersdress was born and caught the attention of the world.

St Andrew’s School, Turi selected for the 2019 #thewearyteachersdress

#thewearyteacher later teamed up with The Global Kindness Project and took this seemingly unremarkable pastime to create awareness on kindness and peace building. In August last year, schools world-wide sent in their applications to be part of #thewearyteacherstravellingdress project. Thanks to the efforts of year 9 Tutor, Ms Esther Wamugunda, St Andrew’s School, Turi was chosen.

Not only was Turi the only school in Africa to be selected, we were also the first to have the dress. A few weeks ago the dress arrived in Turi, the students ‘made their mark’ and it was shipped off to the next destination. The dress will grace classrooms all over the world (a map is provided for those who want to track its movements) with Ms Curfman’s students having the privilege of putting the final touches.

Eventually, the travelling dress may be auctioned off to the highest bidder and proceeds from the auction go to supporting education efforts. It will then be put on display at the Top of Oklahoma Historical Society Museum in Blackwell, Oklahoma as an exhibit that shows students that one little act of kindness can spread across the world.

What an honour it was to have the dress pass by Turi but more than that what an absolute privilege is the opportunity to spread words of kindness the world over.

For more on #thewearyteacher and her dress, check out her website https://thewearyteacher.com/2018/03/27/the-dress-seen-round-the-world/

one of thewearyteacher’s ‘finished’ dresses

From the Turi family to yours, Happy Easter Holidays!