When I decided to be a teacher it was pictures like this Norman Rockwell portrait that made me think that I was going to be a part of a great calling. The majority of my teachers cared and nurtured me for my entire life. Some pushed and encouraged me to levels I never though I could reach.
Now I am what would be considered a long term member of the teaching profession.
From my first year to now my 18th year I never that this would be a profession that would become life threatening.
Those of you who know me understand that I am not a fool. There has been a long and steady decline in the respect that the education profession has been given. In ways, we learned that we must be a little less caring. No more hugs if a child needs it. Don't sit and talk in a room with a student having trouble with the door closed....lawsuit, lawsuit, lawsuit. Don't expect any more respect or money for that matter for making a difference in the life a child.
Through all of this, educators became less nurturing and took on more and more new regulations handed down by others that we must make sure that these students pass this test and that test and we are penalized in our profession if we do not get the job done.
With this most recent shooting in Oregon, I finally realized that teachers now go to school to do the best they can, to care for children even at arms length, with no guarantee that they themselves will return home to their families each night because someone decides it is judgement day in a classroom.
I am watching all of this from a country that does not have a law giving individuals the right to carry their own weapons but the leader to the north threatens the lives of everyone around me nearly every single day. Who is more at risk? Seriously?
I am deeply thankful and indebted to our armed forces, police, fire, paramedics, doctors, nurses, and all those I cannot name right now. They are heroes in their fields but now I think that there needs to be a new member added to ranks and not for the right reasons but for all of the gut-wrenchingly wrong ones. I think teachers should be right up there as heroes now as well. I feel more convicted of that than ever, especially in the USA.
Teachers now risk their lives to go to work and do the job they were hired to do. I don't think there will ever be a teachers memorial on the Washington Mall that will honor those who have lost their lives tragically in all of these school shootings. But there is not one teacher that I know of that would not willingly place themselves directly in front of anyone threatening violence towards their students. If that isn't a hero then I really do not know what one is.
So tonight I just say my prayers for all the victims and their families but I also send strength and love to all of my teachers past and present and all those who I know in the teaching profession for the week ahead. Stay safe. Stay strong. Love the children beyond all of the political bull. Return to your families every night. You are heroes to me.
Oh Norman Rockwell what your paintings look like if you had lived long enough to see all that I have now seen in this profession.
I wonder.
