aN aPPLE FOR THE tEACHERS

Teachers everywhere are starting to stress!  I know my daughter is.  It is always a challenge for her to see what new mandates have been issued by people who haven’t seen the inside of a real classroom in ages!  More and more time is demanded of our teachers and they have less and less quality time to spend with your children.  Oh for the “Good Old Days” of reading, writing and arithmetic.  There are a lot of good things happening in classrooms and there are thousands of really great teachers.  Spending the day with your child is not just a job to them.  Unfortunately for them, they are no longer allowed to do what they have been educated to do.  Their first priority ends up being annual yearly progress, achievement testing, state and federal mandates.  Somewhere we took kids out of education.  (It is not the only profession that this has happened in.  Don’t worry, I will rant about some of the others when the mood strikes.) 

My daughter is a loving dedicated teacher who puts an enormous amount of energy into educated the children she is assigned each year.  She puts in many hours on days off and buys supplies with her own funds.  She has obtained a Master’s Degree while working full time.  She does all of this while trying to balance a home, a husband, and two small children.  I am so incredibly proud of “Mommy”.

Her brothers will of course poke fun at her degrees.  They will remind her that she got to make a giant paper mache’ grasshopper as part of her college classes, and that she only has to be a little smarter than her first graders.  Yet, when the nieces and nephew are around my boys can fold faster than a towel.  They forget that she spends all day long in a room with active, not quiet children!

Teachers put a lot of energy and love into teaching your children, and I mean that about the great majority of teachers.  There are a few bad apples in every basket but that is another issue.  They help to mold the young ladies and men who eventually graduate from high school and leave from college.  One day you will cry, like I do, every time a new college year starts and you will wonder how time can fly so quickly.  And a few hours later, you will smile and remember with love the culmination of the years.  I wish all of you a blessed new start to the school year.  Enjoy every moment of your child’s educationand growth.