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As a parent, your life is frequently shaped by a school calendar. Family vacations are planned around school breaks. Academic achievements, big and small, are celebrated. Kitchen table battles are fought over solving equations with “new math.”
As a new academic year begins, I realize my era as a parent of school kids (a term a college student no doubt finds offensive) is drawing to a close.
After 19 straight years of school (21 if you count Montessori pre-school), my oldest daughter finished her studies in the spring with a master’s degree and a 4.0 GPA. She did this while working full time, counteracting the notion that kids these days are lazy and don’t know how to work (a gripe, I believe, that has been leveled at every generation for centuries).
My youngest daughter has returned to campus for her senior year of college after a year of studying abroad. The move-in was quick and simple, with little time to think (until now) that this may be the last time for dropping off bags of clothes, bedding and snacks in a small room where a twin bed with an impossibly thin mattress is hoisted on risers against a cream colored wall that may soon be adorned with photos and strings of lights.
Will I miss these days? Maybe. Maybe (and I hope I’m not jinxing anything here) we’ll enjoy the freedom when our kids are fully launched and building their lives, maybe nearby, maybe continents away.
What I have missed is opportunities to thank the many educators who helped to shape my girls into the women they have become. Yes, as an elementary school principal warned years ago, they are strong willed and opinionated. These are traits that were deemed problematic in a first grader but that are valued – and needed – as they have become young women.
Dozens of teachers, from elementary school through college, even those who didn’t feel like a good fit for my girls, had a role in indelibly molding them in meaningful ways. And, for that, I am eternally grateful.
Yet, questioning teachers, even maligning them, has become increasingly common – sometimes even encouraged – in some circles, especially conservative ones.
At a time when educators are being second-guessed for supporting children, for teaching a full accounting of America’s not always proud history, for assigning books that broaden perspectives, we must remember why they do these things.
Teachers are, daily, faced with herculean tasks. Their job, in a very oversimplified way, is to guide a dozen, or 20 or sometimes more, children through a long list of tasks, concepts and ideas. Each child brings their own set of challenges. They know different things and learn differently. Some speak different languages. Some can sit still for hours, some can’t do so for a minute. Some students are respectful while others are argumentative. Some play sports, some excel at art, some do both. Some students come from strong, supportive families; others don’t. Some have lived through tragedies so horrific they’d break your heart. Some children have a strong sense of who they are, while others are discovering their identity.
Every day, teachers navigate through all these and other differences while moving each student forward on a learning journey. An end point is in mind, getting there may be different every day and every year.
For many working parents of young children, these students may spend more of their waking hours with a teacher than they do with a parent. This in no way suggests that teachers replace parents or should necessarily overrule parental wishes and desires. It does, however, mean that teachers usually know their kids pretty well. They know when they are struggling, when they are upset or sad, when they are hungry. Often even when students don’t articulate their fears or hardships, teachers know that help may be needed. In some rare cases, teachers may be a trusted counselor or ally in the absence of parental support.
For these reasons, as another school year begins, we need to trust educators. Will they sometimes make mistakes or bad decisions? Of course, we all do. When they do, changes and maybe even corrective action may be necessary. However, just because an educator does something that you personally don’t like or agree with, that doesn’t make it wrong or unacceptable for everyone.
We also need to appreciate them. Higher pay would be a great way to show appreciation and respect. In the meantime, a simple “thank you” would no doubt be welcomed.
