Honoring our teachers means voting for candidates who will restore the massive funding cuts that have starved many of our schools and made being a teacher even more financially precarious than it has traditionally been in many of our states.
Honoring our teachers means marching with them when they feel they have to march and rally and petition to get politicians’ attention – then following up with our own messages to those politicians so they can’t claim the “teachers are just complaining.”
Honoring our laboring teachers means volunteering in their classrooms, learning first-hand what they need to do their jobs well for our children and grandchildren, then joining our voices to theirs to make these needs persistently known.
Honoring the teaching profession means becoming so politically active and effective that no teacher has 7 classes of 24 to 42 students (yes, that’s a teacher I know here in a Houston public high school), that no charter chain takes one more dollar from our public schools, that no US secretary of education gets one piece of voucher legislation through Congress, and that no more billionaires use their wealth to try to “buy” our public schools (yes, that’s you, Los Angeles and Little Rock).
And if we truly honor our teachers, we will follow the lead of the students of Marjorie Stedman Douglas High School and the thousands of other youth and their families around the country in working tirelessly for good, strict gun safety and gun control laws so that no teacher ever has to protect her students from a shooter and no teacher ever ever is expected to have -- or use -- a gun at school. Ever.
Honoring our laboring teachers means joining forces with them to protect the public’s schools and, by so doing, protect our democracy.
Thank a teacher, hug a teacher – then go to work on their behalf!
3 comments:
Thanks to Linda for being teachers' and children's #1 advocate--
A Teacher’s Heart
A teacher’s heart is
Big enough to care about every child;
Patient enough to explain the same concept
again and again and again.
Creative enough to explain a lesson this way,
that way, a new way, and yet still another way.
Has enough stamina to
do carpool duty in the morning (in the rain),
teach all day,
do carpool after school (in the rain);
tutor, help out a colleague, conference with a parent;
plan until they threaten to lock you in;
grade during lunch, after dinner, and on the way to school;
do “family” things while the family sleeps;
read professional books until you sleep;
AND
do it all over the next day.
A teacher’s heart
Has enough commitment to find what’s right
for this year’s class;
Is flexible enough to change last year’s plan
for this year’s kids;
Loves every child uniquely;
prays for each by name;
Considers “them” before “me”
Does theirs, before mine and
Never gives up on a child.
A teacher’s heart
loves the work,
looks forward to summer, but
sleeplessly anticipates the first day of school.
Pansy Gee
How about: "Honoring teachers by opting your child out of the standardized tests."
"Honoring teachers by refusing to have your children participate in CBE and other fake 'personalized learning' technology based pseudo curriculum schemes."
"Honoring your teachers means providing a certified aid and SpEd teacher (especially in K-8) for every classroom and providing time for all three to plan curriculum as needed.
Could probably thing of many more, those just came out in a minute or two.
How about "Honoring teachers by freeing them from the top down unjust, unethical and invalid mandates from those who have never taught or have little teaching experience in a public school.
Well said! Blessed to be a teacher!
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