My enjoyable co-workers and I have been struggling for the last month to deal with no longer being in an abusive relationship. As I looked around a meeting this morning and listened to our new Fearless Leader say without directly saying that we didn't need to fear being treated and suspected of wrongdoing constantly as we had in previous regimes, it occured to me that the public school teacher is, on the whole, a kicked puppy.
You've seen them on the ASPCA ads. The big, sweet eyed puppy cowering in the corner, terrified of the kind hand of rescue being offered because some soulless monstrosity of a person had kicked him too many times and like anyone with motives as pure as a puppy's, he didn't understand why the person whose acceptance he craved was hurting him. Oh my, at 6 months pregnant, even visualizing that and typing it up made me tear up a bit.
Teachers are beat down. We are now universally held accountable not only for teaching reading, writing and 'rithmatic, but for raising American children, teaching their parents to parent, providing meals to those whose parents can't or won't do it, urging parents/doctors/diagnosticians to identify disabilities, teaching morality and ethics and thinking and in too many cases lately, toilet training to 5 and 6 year olds. And when our superhero powers fail us, the "system" cuts our pay, points fingers at us, kicks us and generally treats us with malice and suspicion that is unwarranted in most cases.
Of course there are bad eggs. There are bad eggs in any profession. But I'd wager that the vast, vast majority of teachers are not bad eggs. They're sincerely trying to do the best they can to educate little friends and teach them how to function in a safe and healthy environment. Without this sincere desire to touch the life of a child with something other than a fist or a kick, there'd be no reason for a teacher to take the abuse that's heaped on us daily when we could trot our merry rear ends to the private sector for better pay, better benefits and more respect.
I posted something on Facebook the other day about wishing I subscribed to a religion that had more work holidays, and a high school friend asked if having three months a year off wasn't enough.... I think this illustrates perfectly that most Americans hold us accountable for a job they don't understand and could never do themselves, but believe they know more about than we, the ones doing the job, do. I don't have three months off. Never have. Probably never will. I could do like others and go through accounting for all the time and energy I expend in my job that others don't have- even trivial things like not purchasing wine or liquor in a store where a child that knows me from school might see me. Think an engineer has to worry about whether or not his Friday night 6-pack purchase might offend a co-worker to the point that he's profiled and demonized on the evening news, written up for ethical issues and in fear of losing his job? Likely not. But teaching, like being a pastor, is a vocation. It's a life. It's all encompassing. I don't turn it off when 4:00 comes around and I head home.
Teachers are beaten up. But from what I see, we're not broken down. We're working our collective heinies off to try to compensate for an educational system that doesn't see children as unique, expressive and fallible humans but as machines and for whom The Almighty Dollar runs the show. But that doesn't make us stop tying shoes and wiping noses. We can't abandon the needs that we see. We show up every day hoping that there's news saying that the pendulum is swinging back into the realm of sane expectations, parent responsibility and reasonable accoutability standards from the insanity of No Child Left Behind and its ramifications. But even until it does, and hopefully it will, we still plan, prepare and teach.
It sure would be nice if more people like our new boss would make the choice to stop kicking us when we're down and instead choose to row the boat along with us as we continue gently down the stream, merrily waiting for when life will be a dream.
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