Recently I was seated between two friendly women, each of us Southwest bound to Oakland, California. I was traveling to see my two year old granddaughter. My seat mates: Peggy, 55, a longtime employee of Kellogg, and Marieda, 75, who for years worked in the olive industry, mostly as a sorter. Within the first ten minutes of our flight I had already inquired about what the other two ladies did as an occupation. One would think this would lead into the segue of "so what do you do?" but it didn't so I left it at that.
Most of the trip was consumed with giggles and preoccupation with the male flight attendant. We all agreed he was a plant for the show Punked, however Ashton Kutcher never showed. Sitting in the front row of the plane does have its perks. All was going well until dear Marieda brought up the subject of Idaho teachers.
"Did you know that Idaho is 49th as the worst schools? Idaho teachers are awful, they aren't teaching our children anything." You would think this was the perfect opportunity to defend my 30 year experience as an Idaho teacher. There was just a handful of minutes left in my flight so I decided to just listen. After several minutes of what seemed to be a clip from the Charlie Brown comic, Marieda's voice morphed into "wah, wah, wah. . . " If this had been a longer flight, I swear I would have revealed my occupational identity and set the record straight.
I would have told Marieda how we "teachers" stay after contract hours to prepare riveting bell ringers and presentations, how we rack our brains to come up with innovative incentives to reward our students for their efforts, and shed tears of frustration for those students who interrupt this amazingly choreographed dance we spent hours to prepare. The staggering amount of money we spend out of our own pockets to make our bulletin boards pleasing, supplies for special projects, and to supplement those students who don't bring pencils to class.
Does Marieda think we are sitting behind our desks eating bon-bons while our classes' run amuck? Seriously. Fortunately the conversation diverted with Marieda's complaint about how the government is trying to run everybody's lives. "Can you believe it? The government is telling us we can't eat French fries cooked in trans fats!" Oh Marieda. Dear, dear Marieda.
Education is a partnership. A partnership between parents, students, teachers, the administration and the government. If any entity of this partnership isn't giving its all, it will not be successful. So my question is: What are you doing to contribute to the success of Idaho education?
No comments:
Post a Comment