Teachers, An Appreciation

My brother's salutatorian address was titled, "Teachers, an Appreciation", which was one of the finer graduation speeches I've heard in my life. Sure, his fellow classmates might have thought he was pandering and sucking up to a group that rewarded his hard work with grades that got him into Brown's eight-year medical program. In his defense, he already had his acceptance letter, so the logical conclusion was that he sincerely believed that teachers deserved a pat on the back, which at 17 years old, put him far ahead of his time.

In any case, as years have passed and many of our former classmates have grown up to become educators - or at least parents who recognize the work that goes into teaching children - we too have developed at least some greater appreciation for the hard work of the teachers in our community. Ironically, teachers are also getting a wave of negative publicity largely because of the battles many municipalities are waging against teacher unions. Right or wrong, governors and mayors seem to be winning more converts in the PR battle with the public, and in a still hurting economy, more and more people are resonating less with the mantra that "teachers are underpaid and under-appreciated", but "the economy and job market's in the crapper, and these public employees should absorb the pain like the rest of us."

Recently, an old acquaintance of mine posted something on Facebook which resonated with me:

A teacher somewhere in your neighborhood tonight will be grading & preparing lessons to teach your children while you are watching television. In the minute it takes you to read this, teachers all over the world are using their "free time", and often investing their own money, for your child's literacy, prosperity & future.

There's a lot of truth there. In full disclosure, I'm married to an educator, and while she isn't currently teaching in a public school, she has her masters degree in education and has taught at multiple private schools, and she's not shy in articulating her belief that the lack of appreciation (manifesting in insufficient pay and respect) of teachers is nothing short of a moral outrage and a black mark upon our society. I have many friends who are teachers.

But the fact of the matter is that for a society that talks about children being the future and the paramount importance of equipping the next generation morally, intellectually and creatively - we don't seem to be putting our money where our mouth is. The Facebook post above is compelling because it also speaks to the contrast between a public teacher and a private corporate employee. Believe me, I work very hard, but I subconsciously consider the many times that I need to crack my laptop open during the weekend or a weeknight "me being a hard-worker going the extra mile"; for teachers, this is a matter of course and completely not optional. Teachers dig into their pockets and use their own money to pay for teaching aids and crafts for the kids; I take a taxi because of a dinner at a nice restaurant recruiting event (paid for by the company, of course), I'm expensing that back to the company, per policy. I'm not being the "wallowing in guilt" corporate guy here, I'm just duly appreciating the sacrifices that teachers make, which aren't always obvious to the rest of us.

Back to the current climate regarding teachers and their unions - I do think that the tenure construct needs to be revisited and some form of pay-for-performance which rewards the best teachers needs to be put into place. Yes, I appreciate that it's challenging to assess performance, but the answer, at least to me, isn't to institute a first-in-last-out policy based purely on seniority. If the unions show that their most important goal is about ensuring that their best performers are richly rewarded and equipped as opposed to protecting their weak performers, I think that's something everyone can agree upon.