Trey Smith
Let’s just note that the heroic teachers who died while courageously trying to protect their kids at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, and the others who survived but stayed to protect the kids, were all part of a school system where the employees are members of the American Federation of Teachers.
Let’s just let that sink in for a moment. Those teachers, who are routinely being accused by our politicians of being drones and selfish, incompetent money grubbers worried more about their pensions than about teaching our children (though most, even after 10 years, earn less than $55,000 a year for doing a very difficult job that involves at least 12-14 hours a day of work and prep time counting meetings with parents), stood their ground when confronted with a psychotic assailant armed with semi-automatic pistols and an automatic rifle, and protected their kids. The principal too, a veteran teacher herself, stood her ground, reportedly suicidally charging at the assailant along with the school’s psychologist in a doomed effort to tackle him and stop the carnage.
How many of us would have had to the courage to stand in front of a closet door to keep an armed madman from finding the kids hidden behind it, as one slain young teacher, Vicki Soto, 29, died doing? How many of us would charge at an armed shooter, to almost certain death, in an effort top stop him from further killing? How many would bravely hide in a bathroom with a class of kids when we could have run away and saved ourselves?
And this: How many of the politicians in Washington and in state capitals and how many conservative think-tank “researchers” who attack teachers as leeches and drones would have shown such heroism under fire?~ from America’s Teachers: Heroes or Greedy Moochers at the Public Trough? by Dave Lindorff ~
You know, this is one of the first thoughts that came to my mind as news reports started coming in reporting the deaths of teachers and administrators at Sandy Hook Elementary School. These educators, who have been so denigrated over the past few years, literally gave their lives in an attempt to save those of their young students!
Throughout the country, the school's principal, vice principal, psychologist and teachers are being lauded for their heroism -- AS THEY SHOULD BE. They are being held up as models of what it means to be caring and courageous individuals.
And yet, when these same people ask to be compensated fairly and for more resources to be provided to their schools, many of the same people who are honoring them today call them all sorts of vile names. They are called greedy, selfish and several names I care not to repeat.
Most teachers thankfully will never face a situation in which they will be asked to face down an individual bent on mass murder. But they regularly must deal with children from broken homes, schools that are crumbling and school programs that are starved for resources. Most of them work long hours; a lot of it out of the classroom.
Today these education professionals are being lauded as heroes, but how will most people treat them and their colleagues across the nation in the weeks, months and years to come?
It's very bad that teachers are such an easy target for criticism. That happens over here as well as in the USA.
ReplyDeleteThey can't point to warehouses of produce as a measure of productivity, but they are undoubtedly important. Education is the basis of a civilised society and a fundamental cornerstone of human rights.