It took me a while to think on this one. At first I just wanted a 2-3 sentence post with some witty remark shrouded in angst, but then I realized 2-3 sentences is not enough to say what I feel.
It is impossible to be apolitical right now. You can feel it, everyone has a side, and less and less people are staying silent.
I knew it was coming. I knew I had to go back to work. At first it was just another day closer to a new school year, but the closer it got, the more pissed off I got.
Football started again too, and basketball, and their first minutes were filled with boos and jeers, followed by hypocritical cheers and praise. Athletes aren’t allowed to be political, they shouldn’t take a knee or endorse a candidate. Stick with what they know: Shove them on the head, pat them on the ass and tell them boys to go run fast for everyone to see. That’s what we want. And good for those rich athletes who can afford a year off from work to take care of their families and their million dollar contracts.
But fuck the teachers.
School started too. But any boos or jeers I had to read on my daily news feed: teachers are lazy, teachers don’t want to work, kids need social interaction, kids don’t get as sick as adults… it’s all a conspiracy anyway.
And my favorite: I wish I could get summers off.
My response to that: Then become a fucking teacher! Oh, you don’t want to deal with the shitty kids, the BS paperwork, the 1,000 emails a day, the parent phone calls? Then fuck you, you don’t know what it means to be a teacher. By the way, we don’t get paid for our ‘Summers off’. We get paid for 187 days a year. That means our salary doesn’t count for those 8 weeks we’re not in the classroom. Yeah, it’s 8 weeks. Not 3 months, and it keeps getting shorter. Most of us get paid the equivalent of $20 an hour and that’s only for the time at school. Not counting what we do before 8am and after 4:30pm or on weekends.
I guess I shouldn’t discount the positive praise for teachers. You know who is mostly supporting teachers? Other teachers! And anybody else is sending their “thoughts and prayers” to all those teachers out there.
You know what? Thoughts and prayers haven’t protected teachers from dying. When a kid brings a gun to school and kills a teacher, thoughts and prayers didn’t keep it from happening again. And when it did happen again, the thoughts and prayers got quieter and quieter after every time it happened, again and again and again…
I do not consider myself a veteran teacher, but in my short time as an educator, I know my experience is universal.
Next time you see a teacher, think about these questions:
Have they ever spoken to a kid the day before they died?
Have they ever taken kids to the funeral of their friend?
Have they ever had to fill out a report to CPS, more than once, on the same kid?
Have they ever spoken to a counselor about a teenager wanting to commit suicide?
Have they ever had an active shooter lockdown in their school that was not a drill?
Ask yourself if you’ve ever had to do these things at your job and imagine what it would feel like if you did.
Then imagine them happening at least once a year, every year… sorry within the 187 working days you get paid for. (Oh and yes, all those things I listed, are part of my experience, by the way.)
I started teaching again, and we’re nine weeks in, with a heavy cloud of uncertainty hovering over every desk I have to wipe down with an unknown chemical. My son started school again, too. Six years old and already understands why he has to wear a mask. He already knows what an active shooter drill means, too.
But “Teachers don’t want to work”.
Dumbass. Teachers have been working. We’ve been working since this shit show started and we’re still working. And we’ll keep working until after this dumpster fire is put out by another shit storm.
We want to work, we want to see our students’ faces. We want to teach like we know how to teach. What we don’t want is to risk our lives for our 187 day salary. You interpret teachers not wanting to go to school and teach in person as “Teachers don’t want to work and want to be paid for free.” We do want to work, we are working. We just don’t want to die.
It’s just like when people hear “Black Lives Matter” and interpret it as “White lives don’t matter.” The meaning is misinterpreted because of fear of betraying an agenda.
How about “Teacher Lives Matter”? or “Child Lives Matter”? Can you get off your high horse and support that? Can you err on the side of caution, swallow your fucking pride and wear a fucking mask for a few minutes out of your meaningless day? NO? Because teachers literally aren’t allowed to do their job unless they wear a mask 6-8 hours a day.
Chances are if you’re in the anti-mask camp then you’re probably ok with kids killing kids too. Don’t wear a mask, they’ll infect each other and some will die, but we’ll get through it. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers. It’s the same camp that thinks it’s okay for a teenager to get a gun, kill other teenagers or children or teachers because we have a right to keep and bear arms. Just keep them in your thoughts and prayers.
But people don’t believe those things happen anyway.
The same camp thinks when a kid gets a gun and kills other people, it’s a situation that can be twisted and manipulated to an outcome for praising a teenager for killing a human being.
The twisting and manipulating of situations where people have been killed, and their deaths being justified, shows a lack of empathy for the death of a person.
I know it’s confusing. Killing a person shouldn’t be that simple. Chances are you’ve been ok with it, and you never should be. Your thoughts and prayers don’t make it better, or absolve you of your responsibility.
But the riots, and the killings, and the armed men taking control of government buildings without arrest, and the war on people of color, and the lazy teachers and the ignorant athletes and dumb musicians, this is all nothing new. If the last 4 years have taught us anything, it's that the next 20 will be more of the same.
Where is your raisin in the sun now? Where is your dream deferred?
Everyday is more bad news. Everyday another kid dies. Everyday an underpaid teacher or nurse dies, but that’s ok because it’s more important to be right. Just keep them in your thoughts and prayers.
Chances are I will not change your mind, for your mind is already made up.
Chances are you hear me, but you will deny me and discount me.
Chances are you will read me and contradict me and discredit me.
Chances are you will agree with me and praise me and still pass me on.
If you support our current leadership,
You are not allowed to like this post.
If you have ever said ‘All lives matter’ in response to “Black Lives Matter”
You are not allowed to like this post.
If you think being “politically incorrect’ is a way to hide your racism, sexism, or homophobia,
You are not allowed to like this post.
If you think it’s ok for a kid to ever kill someone for any reason,
You are not allowed to like this post.
If you’ve never looked into the eyes of a child wearing a mask and seen a torn soul,
You are not allowed to like this post
I don’t want your thoughts and prayers, I want your empathy, I want your vulnerability.
I want change.
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