General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: TIME's new cover: This is what it's like to be a teacher in America [View all]calimary
(81,240 posts)WHAT will it take? WHAT will it take - to recognize how tremendously important and critically necessary the teaching profession is?
Dear God! We NEED our teachers! We need to support and assist them, and have their backs every minute of every day. We trust our precious children to them for at least a third of their lives while theyre school-age. Figure roughly 1/3 of a 24 hour day goes to sleep, 1/3 to on-duty/work/school, and the last third to off-duty/family interaction.
Teaching is HARD work. Ive done a little myself. And heck, I only taught an individual class at any given time. The prep work alone is almost an entirely separate job, in and of itself! And any good teacher recognizes that to stay good, its like exercising to stay fit. You have to keep up. Youv got to be studying and working on your craft and always expanding and learning new things and techniques. You cant afford to stop and sit and calcify. Youre a knowledge curator and broker. And the more you know, the better a teacher you can be. And that means you never really take a vacation. Youre ALWAYS working. Every days experiences are part of the lesson prep. And thats not counting actual class time, and YOUR homework grading all those papers and tests and reports.
God! It takes work. Its a GARGANTUAN responsibility because its on our teachers to get our kids ready for the future. It should AT LEAST pay our teachers a decent wage!