Valuing Education

Posted by Kira on February 24, 2010

There are so many thoughts that come to my mind just from those two simple words. So I’ll ramble for a moment.

This week, our Principal made a statement during a meeting in which he was telling us the dire straights that my school is in, which just mirrors our county’s situation. My highschool must cut $1 million dollars out of the budget for next year, while taking in 150 new students bringing our total enrollment to 2700. How do you cut while growing? Anyway, he said that no one ever feels the sting of education cuts- because teachers always, to a fault, “dig in” and “do what it takes” so that the kids and parents are happy, content, well-educated, and have programs and activities.

I’m starting to think that teachers must, as a group, have very low self-esteem. Why do we value what we do so much when no one else seems to? Why do we spend 2o+ unpaid hours of work every week running clubs, making presentations and visual aids, lesson-planning, and all the other things we do (how about running a school-wide Jazz Fest, after school on a Friday night, with no funding? Um, I mean, funded directly by the teachers involved.)

Well, I know that the value I derive from my work comes from the fact that I have 250 students who appreciate me and are signing up for my classes next year. They have come to me to be sure which classes I will teach so they can plan their schedule around being SURE to take one of my classes. They have told me when I’m in trouble- for example, some of my “boys” have speculated on my extracurricular activities-you must understand, I am a bit non-traditional. I am young, hip, tech-savvy, tattooed and pierced. That means, in their eyes, that I MUST be involved in things no teacher should be doing. So I had to set that group straight! Of course, the conversation was had privately, from the standpoint of healthy vs. unhealthy choices- and it allowed me my 30 second soapbox speech about body modifications at too young an age (I’m not a victim, having achieved my own body art over the age of 30.) They soaked it up, too.

For now, that will have to be good enough for me.

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