If you’re a new teacher, you will undoubtedly feel a lot of pressure. You will feel a lot of pressure to learn your content and the ins and outs of your school quickly. You will feel a lot of pressure to form quick relationships with your students and find the best ways to teach them, regardless of the fact that you’re still learning with them. You will simply feel a lot of pressure to be the absolute best teacher that you can be.

One thing you might not expect to feel pressure for, but you undoubtedly will, is the pressure of having the Pinterest-perfect classroom. If you walk through any given school, you will likely see any number of classrooms with hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars of teacher-bought classroom decorations, supplies, and furniture.

When you’re a brand-spankin’-new teacher and all you have is a bulletin board and a couple of posters hung up with enough supplies to start out the school year, it’s easy to feel like you’re not good enough when your fellow teachers have custom-ordered, color-coordinated, themed classrooms complete with peel-and-stick wallpaper, alternative seating, and bookshelves full of hundreds of dollars of books and supplies.

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I’m here to tell you that none of that matters. What truly matters is the relationships you have with your students. If you’re like me, I can tell you a lot about my favorite teachers. I have had a lot of great teachers, but one teacher that stands out to me was my first-grade teacher.

I still remember how anytime Mrs. S smiled, her eyes crinkled. I still vividly remember the comfort and excitement I felt when she read Junie B. Jones aloud to us every afternoon. I credit her for, at the young age of seven, instilling a lifelong love for reading and writing in me.

Being in her class, I actually enjoyed coming to school every day. She felt like family to me. Years later, I remember when she passed away and how it felt like the world had lost a very special person.

I don’t remember if she had a classroom library full of every Junie B. Jones book in mint condition or if she checked them out one at a time from the local library. I can’t tell you if she had a $200 rug we all sat on to listen to her read to us or if we all just sat at our boring ole desks. It didn’t matter.

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To be honest, I can’t remember a single classroom decoration my favorite teacher had because to be honest, that just didn’t matter to me . . . at all. What mattered to me was how she made me feel being in her classroom and that had very little to do with how much money she invested in it.

So when you’re just starting out and thinking about the type of teacher you want to be, remember what really matters. When you are fresh out of school or student teaching with very little in your bank account, remind yourself that your DIY bulletin board and Goodwill classroom library are more than enough. Your students will love you just the same.