Que Sera

I've spent the last few weeks in a sort of mini crisis of faith. Not faith like religion--I already know where I stand there--but faith in my fellow human beings. That faith is in crisis because, everywhere I look lately, my fellow man lets me down. I realize how melodramatic that sounds, and I know that there are still so many good things in life, but others I just can't look past, and that's been a tough pill for me to swallow lately.

Everywhere I look, the public is attacking state employees, especially teachers. It's not just the ridiculous and insulting budget proposed by Florida's new "CEO," either--other states like Wisconsin and Indiana are facing similar crises. The unrest in our states grows every day, and I feel like it's only the beginning.

Lest you think it's just my youth speaking, I asked my considerably more experienced mother if she remembers public opinion toward teachers ever reaching this low, and she said no. The tension troubles me. I feel like we're in a pot that's boiling, and sooner or later it's going to overflow. I'm deeply disturbed when I look in the paper every day and read the letters to the editor that castigate public employees for our "selfishness" in protesting the changes to our pensions, or make claims that we're whiners that don't have it all that bad. Which, sure, compared to a cashier at McDonald's, I'm sure I don't have it all that bad. But I also have a college degree and over 700 hours of continuing education, which I think ought to count for something. Instead I get people with no clue what my job entails calling me names for speaking up in defense of my profession. How is that right?

In the last day or so, however, that bitter pill has begun to go down somewhat easier. It's still bitter, and I don't like taking it, but I've started to realize something--education the way "they" want to make it isnt' sustainable. These proposals might go through, and things will get rough, for teachers AND students, but at the end of the day, it won't last. There's no way it can. Something will have to give, either in a more drastic protest by teachers (and other public employees) to show that we demand the respect that the public refuses to give, or on the side of the legislators when they realize that they can't have their proverbial cake and eat it too. They can't continue to pile demands on our plates without offering some financial support and compensation. You can't mandate MORE testing when we're already looking at cutting 3.3 billion from the education budget. You're not Jean Luc Picard; saying "Make it so" isn't enough.

If it were, teachers would be better paid than doctors and lawyers, because hey--they wouldn't BE doctors and lawyers without teachers!