Motivation Quote by Julius Erving

Erving isn’t romanticizing teachers; he’s diagnosing a structural problem in plainspoken terms. “Thankless task” lands because it strips away the ceremonial praise we trot out during Teacher Appreciation Week and replaces it with what educators actually feel: the work is constant, public-facing, and judged, yet the feedback loop for “success” is delayed, diffuse, and often invisible. A great lesson doesn’t spike a scoreboard. It disappears into a student’s future.

Coming from an athlete, the contrast is the point. Sports are built on measurable reward: points, contracts, highlights, applause. Teaching is built on outcomes that can’t be cleanly quantified and are frequently credited elsewhere (parents, talent, luck, the student’s own grit) when things go right - and pinned on the teacher when they don’t. That’s why “en masse” matters: he’s not claiming no one ever appreciates teachers; he’s saying mass culture doesn’t sustain that appreciation in a way that pays bills, protects morale, or shields time.

The most loaded phrase is “personally rationalize the rewards.” It’s empathy with an edge. He’s acknowledging the quiet psychological labor teachers are forced to do: inventing a private economy of meaning because the public one is stingy. The subtext is a warning about burnout, not just gratitude. If the system’s main retention strategy is asking individuals to self-justify their own exploitation, we shouldn’t be surprised when they eventually stop believing their own story.