217. Teachers

 

I taught high school and junior high school English for 35 years plus a year of student and substitute teaching. I also continue to coach young athletes so, that’s thirty-eight years that I have been around and associated with teachers, not to mention being mentored and aided by them all through my childhood. My undergraduate work was with people training to be teachers under the supervision of practicing teachers. My graduate school in English was primarily with other classroom teachers. When I go to do almost anything it is with other teachers or retired teachers. Even most of my friends that I know abroad are teachers or retired teachers. I associate my entire life with education and I feel like it has been a rich life that led me to travel and deep friendships because I can quickly empathize with and understand other teachers. While I am retired, I still consider myself a teacher and I don’t know that I can ever truly help but be a teacher, sometimes to the consternation of my wife. I love and understand the art of teaching and how teachers think. So, I love teachers.

Teachers are often given lip service by the public, especially during the beginning of the pandemic, as heroes. Still, you do not see great increases in salary. I also have heard plenty of scathing remarks toward teachers during lockdown because the public perceived them as doing nothing because suddenly parents had to be the ones nagging their children to login and work, as if the teachers weren’t working at least twice as hard trying to do the same thing remotely while also trying to figure out new ways to teach online. I certainly never used iMovie on my phone before the pandemic. I had never heard of Zoom and I never used Face Time, yet I and all of my colleagues quickly learned how to use technological platforms most of us had never dreamed of needing before. Luckily, I was able to just retire and not worry so much about it, but I have the utmost admiration for my younger colleagues who have courageously continued to keep kids engaged while it would be easy to give in to depression and anxiety, especially for teens who can easily succumb to that without a pandemic.

Teachers are just amazing people who have a passion for learning and want to share that passion. Teachers believe in constantly expanding horizons. Most are unassuming people who seem incredibly ordinary and then like a bud opening to the sun they get in front of kids and outshine academy award winning actors. Only a few special people get to see that while experiencing a sort of love that is clearly demanding, but gentle and true. I just love that about teachers. I also know that their black faculty lounge humor could quickly lead an outsider to believing these people are perhaps not the most fit human beings to care for their children. That also makes me laugh.

I love teachers. I love that I put my career into teaching and that all of my best friends are also teachers. I love the creative ways that teachers make ways to continue in relatively low paying jobs and how they find ways to spread the wealth of their own educations that extend far beyond their own financial means. They persevere against insane government mandates and care for their students as humans, not statistics for display. Teachers are wonderful people that make me proud to be in their ranks.