So You Want to Be a Teacher?

Since Friday I have had the image of six-year-olds being killed, and other small children as witnesses.  But today I would like to talk about the other victims of our refusal to act against gun violence.

Teachers today, because of our insistence that any idiot should be able to get their hands on a gun, have to train to lead the children in their overcrowded classrooms to safety should a gunman breach the school.  They need to be on guard against strangers in the building at all times, rather than welcoming members of the community into their school.  It's not enough that they have to break up fights and be sure that overly energetic kids are not injuring themselves accidentally, they need to be the military guard of the classroom.

I, for one, can't imagine that we overpay any teacher who educates and cares for our children.  Imagining myself in front of a classroom for hours in a day, I am more than happy that teachers get long vacations, although these days many of them need summer jobs to supplement inadequate incomes.  And are forced to be accessible to parents at school and by phone at all hours.

But add to that the fact that our teachers are risking their lives, and expected to give up their lives, to save our children.  And then, assuming they get out alive, they have to live with having been in the middle of a war zone, and have to go back into that war zone yet another day, and the day after that.  And that their own families will take a back seat to that awesome responsibility.

The tragedy in Newtown was the horrendous extreme of gun violence.  But teachers in some neighborhoods face the possibility of that violence every day.  And we reward them by bickering about whether we should grade them, continue to offer them tenure, extend their school year without remuneration, forbid them to unionize, and if unionized, forbid them to strike.

Take another look at the teachers in your community.  Ask yourself if you would be willing -- if you would be able -- to do what they do for us and our children.