Monday, April 18, 2011

You may not like this....

but I am going to tell you.
I feel like educators are under attack. Educators are up against so much right now and I know there are much more important things going on in this crazy world but this is important too.
Here are 3 things I hear people say who are not a part of education or who once were and have mysteriously forgotten:
1. " Well, you only work 180 days a year."
    Not hardly. There is not a day or even hour that school is not on mind. Planning lessons, writing lesson plans, studying for the next day are an everyday part of my life now. Please go ahead and try to pay me by the hour and it will break the education budget for sure. When we stay after school for games, club meetings, dances, tutoring, etc., we still get the same pay. But we do it for the kids.
2. "How much do you pay for your insurance,?  I bet nothing. I pay $1100."
   I heard the best statement ever at an education rally. This statement ( paraphrased) was made by one of my fellow educators.
" You may pay that much. But we went into education knowing we were not going to be millionaires. We went into education because we want to teach children. We take that cut in pay so we can have the benefits. Don't throw that up in our face. What you all are proposing will cause many good teachers to change their profession because you leave them no choice."
3. " Tenure is stupid."
Well, no it is not. It was made to protect good teachers from losing their jobs. Imagine if teachers lost their jobs because their students did not perform well on a test.
Why do this? Do we fire a dentist because the tooth breaks, a doctor because he/she could not save their patient? No, because we are given "patients" who have not taken care of their teeth or patients who did not take care of their body and we have to fix them. Same for educators.
We take whatever we are given and work with it. Some of it good and some not so good. It doesn't matter we still do our job and do it the best we can.

There are others reasons for tenure that I am not going into because... well frankly, it could tick some people off so I am not.
I am thankful for my job. I love it 4.5 days of the school week. So if you can, let your voice be heard.
Fight for your teachers who are working everyday, giving their all, educating your children and playing part time parents because so many students do not have role models at home.
I know there will have to be cuts somewhere but lets start taking cuts at the top- not the bottom.

That was my rant for today...Sorry!!

Oh and I know some people have been missing me on here( Ok, maybe 1 person) so I will try to give an
update later on of my life the past few weeks!!!

3 comments:

  1. I sure don't like what's happening, but I do like this post! I could really get on my soapbox here, but I won't...I think you put it very nicely. It looks as though we better stand up for ourselves, because nobody else is!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your ranting was very well said. I wish some legislators could read this!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like this post too! These are all things I heard when I was teaching. You know what they say . . . You shouldn't say anything until you've walked in a persons' shoes. Being an educator is so much harder than most people think!

    ReplyDelete