My silence that is...
The general population has gone cuckoo once again.
"Teachers are greedy, selfish, self-centered, etc."
I even saw a few people calling them thugs! Thugs.
Really?
thugTHəɡ/nounplural noun: thugs1.a violent person, especially a criminal.
synonyms: ruffian, hooligan, vandal, hoodlum, gangster, villain, criminal;
I'll tell you what- my sister is a middle school teacher. She goes in long before the kids show up, she stays long after they leave, she coaches three different sports, she doesn't "have summers off" because she is taking Personal Development Classes (that she has to pay for, yet are required of her), attending STEM conferences, teaching summer school, and working on her upcoming lesson plans. And, excuse me, but even if she were making "the average $48k" per year, all of you saying that they get the summers "off" means that in the course of a year she is making $4,000 per month BEFORE taxes are taken out and BEFORE health & dental insurance is taken out.
She is not part of the Teacher's Union. She doesn't want to walk out on her students. In fact, she and a majority of teachers have worked with their district governing board to partner with the local community recreation centers. So, she may be walking out of the classroom... but it will be across the street to the community center to be with her students whose parents cannot afford to keep them home from school. Sure sounds selfish to me.
She doesn't care about claiming a political party nor blaming one over the other. I completely agree with her, this should be a human issue, not a political issue. Private schooling cannot be the answer if we want Arizona (and the country for that matter) to be able to compete with the world in regards to educational standards. Every child should have access to a decent education. Many students are using books that were published decades before they were even born, some classrooms don't have enough chairs/desks and the ones they do have are rickety. Educational supplies aside, when your child has to use the bathroom at school - don't you want it to be clean and stocked with toilet paper and hand soap? The janitorial staff is just as underfunded (falling under the education budget), so in addition to teaching your children all day long your child's teacher may be staying late to help clean bathroom counters and scrub toilets. Some even purchase soap and hand sanitizer for their students to use. That's in their job description, right?
What I really can't understand are the people clamoring about the teachers walking out “setting a bad example for their children,” when just a month ago the vast majority were praising all the high school students for doing exactly the same thing. Is it wrong for me to believe that an educator with a 4-6yrs+ degree and ___# of years in their profession should be trusted on the issue of education more than a 15-17yr old kid yelling about gun control (when they legally cannot purchase a weapon) or, you know maybe they just walked out to skip class?
A pay raise - the threat of the teacher walk-out is not actually about that, if it were this wouldn't be happening. Teachers would have just taken the 20% promised and continued on with their jobs, but they don't want it to be taken away from public safety, etc like so many news reports and online posts I've seen have been stating. Arizona educators want to know specifically where the funding is coming from, they want to know it will actually be used for said purposes, and they would like to know where the money that was devoted to education went when Governor Ducey took office.
The utter vile, hatred, and shameful things coming out of people's mouths directed towards teachers shocks me. If you are so worried about your children, I think you need to take a step back and think about the words you have said or typed. Are you being a good example for your child? Maybe you need to remember that in addition to your son or daughter, their teacher also has 22-29 more kids of the exact same age in their classroom. Their teacher knows each of their names, learning issues they may have that need special attention, food allergies, and often much more than that (home situations, foster care, etc). I for one get burned out with my TWO children... I can't imagine having THIRTY others with individual personalities, hormones, attitudes, etc. that I invest my time and heart into only to have their parents basically drag my reputation through the mud.
Please think before you speak.
Do your research.
Stop the hatred.
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I firmly believe that people in our country have forgotten how to be decent human beings. Face to face conversations discussing topics without screaming, yelling, and belittling others are becoming a rarity. The vast majority of people claim to be “anti-bullying,” but bring up a subject and suddenly that goes out the window. The worst are the keyboard warriors (trust me, I realize the irony as this is posted on my blog) who sit behind computer screens and type hate-filled responses completely forgetting that there is a HUMAN BEING on the other side. A living, breathing, blood-pumping, loving person whom you are shredding with your words... Listen, I get it! No one likes being wrong. No one enjoys accepting defeat.
Teachers are people.
They take care of your kids while you work.
Don’t have kids? Who taught you?
Even if I didn't have children or a sibling/relative who was a teacher, I would still be on their side. I don't want the future leaders of our country to be uneducated or vastly behind on the world stage.
Please- Contact the governor, senators, representatives with viable options for funding the education system. I have and I will continue to. At the very least, stop tearing others down.
