I come from a long line of educators – my grandmother, my parents, countless aunts and uncles and cousins and in-laws, my wife, even I had the privilege of teaching a course at UWGB back in 2013 – so I will admit bias when it comes to what follows, but I feel as though I have witnessed this profession from all possible angles, and what follows still falls well short of what needs to said.
Like so many in the public sector, educators have become increasingly easy targets these days. I won’t make a universal statement because, as is the case with every profession, there are varying degrees of effectiveness from the front of the classroom. We all know great teachers. We’ve all been taught by folks who haven’t made our all-time best list. And there are countless who fall somewhere in the middle of our recollections. But regardless of our personal feelings toward each, the truth is that the teachers work their rear ends off to give our kids something that they can take with them in life – tangibly and, arguably more importantly, intangibly.
I could write pages on the hours they put in – yes, even after the bell sounds…yes, even in summer – especially now, in the arena of hybrid and inclusive learning. I could exhaust countless portable hard drives with the legitimate concern they harbor for our kids. I could fill Olympic swimming pools with the tears shed. I could document the sleepless nights not in minutes, not in hours, not in days or weeks or even months, but in cumulative years. I could hold a ticker-tape parade with the receipts documenting the purchases of school supplies, food, household items, hygiene products, gifts, and clothing for their students and their school families in need.
The English language does not possess enough words to express all that teachers are, that is not seen, and cannot be measured. But as I said at the onset, educators are easy targets. Those who understand and value the physical and mental commitment to teaching know this well. Those who do not, likely care not to, and nothing that I write or say will sway that. So I’ll just say this: the complexities and demands of a teacher’s job are greater than most of us can possibly fathom, and certainly greater than most of us can possibly handle, not simply in the classroom, but outside of it. It’s a reality whose surface we’ve all been forced to scratch over the last few years, and the overwhelming majority of us have discovered that we like it a lot better when the burden falls not on our shoulders.
Unfortunately, that includes teachers.
It’s funny how easily we can let slip through our fingers the influence of many of the educators in our lives. “What was the name of that guy who taught physics in high school?” While the name or likeness might escape us, our teachers remember every single one of us. Every…single…one. They remember our names; they remember our faces; they can recall, on-demand, at least one story from their days with us. They follow us through our lives, long after we have left their classrooms, championing each of our successes and aching through our failures, often silently, for while they selflessly boast no credit for our victories, they invariably take upon themselves a measure of failure when we fall.
Teaching is an exceptionally difficult and, in so many areas, thankless profession that battles through a social perception of ease on a daily basis. Ironically, in the majority of districts across our entire state (and many districts across our nation), we are facing a teacher shortage. It’s the “easiest” job in the state that no one is lining up to do.
Too many ignore the fact that, for many families, the teacher spends more waking hours on a weekday with the child than does the parent. That is in no way an indictment of the parent or the American family structure; rather, it serves as a sobering reminder of the role(s) educators play in the lives of our children.
We put a lot on the shoulders of our teachers, and we often expect more than any individual could reasonably deliver. And the heaviest injustice we do unto our educators is to deflect our roles as the greatest teachers in the lives of our children.
Happy Teacher Appreciation Day/Week to all those educators out there. Thank you for what you do for our children and for our communities every single day.
