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Top Comments: The Lasting Impact of Educators Edition [1]

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Date: 2023-01-16

I’ve had the people we entrust our children to in school on my mind a lot recently and not just because my eldest is a school counselor, working with students in grades K-8. Find yourself a desk (no assigned seating here!) and settle in. I promise there will be no quiz at the end, but it’s important for you to consider what I’m about to share in this edition of Top Comments.

First: on Saturday morning, it appeared as though the educators at Casa Brillig’s local public school (from which K1 graduated and K2 attended until this fall) were going on strike, frustrated after months of negotiating a new contract to replace the one that expired almost seven months ago. Thankfully, an agreement was reached after a full day and night of bargaining, averting a strike.

They weren’t asking for the moon, but they did want an increase in compensation given our average salary is almost $20K less than the state average and far less than any neighboring district. No one, no one at all, disputes that they deserve a huge increase. But the reasons we aren’t doing what we SHOULD are the result of chronic underfunding, and a state statute in place since 1980, Prop 2 ½:

Under Proposition 2½, a municipality is subject to two property tax limits: Ceiling: The total annual property tax revenue raised by a municipality shall not exceed 2.5% of the assessed value of all taxable property contained in it. Increase limit: The annual increase of property tax cannot exceed 2.5%, plus the amount attributable to taxes that are from new real property.

My town is over 95% residential, and therefore if inflation is >2.5%, we can’t keep up (for example, the most my property taxes can go up next year is about $150. You see the problem… the only way to fix it is with an Override vote, and those are… unpopular.

Those teachers making wages far too low to allow them to actually LIVE in my city are amazing educators. They’ve had a lasting and transformative effect on my children and their friends. They work hard, pay for SO. Many. Things out of their own pockets, and are doing their best to educate and counsel our children on the flip side of a devastating global pandemic.

While our local community facebook pages were focused on the possible impending strike, I got work via my own high school class group that another of our former teachers had died. He was 95, and I’d had him for Driver’s Ed. I learned from his obituary that his wife had predeceased him. She’d been one of the finest math teachers I’d ever had, so much so that I dropped Chorus in my Senior year because if I’d stayed in it, I would have HAD to take calculus with the other teacher, and I knew from a prior class I’d never learn anything. So I dropped my beloved Chorus and instead had a fantastic year in Math class (and sang once more in Glee Club my Senior year of college!).

The tributes from my classmates poured in about this man and his wife, who we had as teachers FORTY years ago. Over the years we’ve talked about other teachers when news of their passing reached us. And I’ve sat with fellow classmates at dinners and reunions and in phone calls, and reminisced about those teachers who had a lasting impact on us. I was blessed to have a cadre of phenomenal teachers during my time in secondary school (I’m sure I had fantastic elementary school ones, but I don’t remember many… but hold the elementary thought for later on in this diary). Two social studies teachers that ignited a passion in me for history, government, politics and more. My college application essay was about my time in one of these men’s class, and while I no longer have a copy of it, I know it was one of the best things I’ve ever written. The chair of our English Department, whose voice I still hear when I write and whose grammar handbook many of her former students STILL have. She made me come during her lunch break for independent study my senior year because she noticed that due to scheduling quirks, I had a truly easy english elective and she said I needed a challenge. Even my gym teacher and track coach, who was a fierce believer in Title IX and the right of girls to participate in sports. She pushed us ALL to do well and those lessons carry through today.

BUT not all of the lasting impact of my teachers was good. Remember I said I don’t remember many specific examples of exemplary elementary school teachers? I vividly remember my fourth grade teacher, who mocked those who were different and punished us cruelly for minor infractions. She made children stand in garbage cans and put forbidden chewed gum on their noses. EVERY person I know who had her, remembers. And our gym teacher, who allowed stronger kids to bully those of us who were not particularly athletic. To this day I despise the thought of dodgeball, because he let us be bruised by stronger kids throwing balls at us. And I think of how he required everyone to climb that fucking knotted rope up what had to be two stories, whether or not they were strong enough or were afraid of heights. And then there’s the high school gym teacher who routinely made sexist derogatory comments at high school girls, and who explicitly told them that no one would believe them if they spoke up. I was lucky to avoid his attention but a good friend was not.

The educators, school counselors and other school staff — administration, lunchroom personnel, bus drivers, coaches — I may not remember exactly what they taught me from the syllabus, or what I got served for lunch, or who signed my early dismissal papers, but I absolutely remember how they made me FEEL. And the good ones, the ones who still make me smile when I talk about them, they made me feel Valued. Heard. Worth The Effort. Capable of Learning.

Both good and bad, education professionals have a lifelong impact on us. Those in the schools today are having that same impact on the next generations. There has to be a way to compensate those exemplary individuals so they don’t make the decision, as many are right now, to leave the profession for other careers. I really believe education is a vocation, not merely a job… so to have so many leave despite that is painful. I worry that if we don’t value our educators appropriately, those who remain are NOT the ones who’ll make our children feel heard, valued, and worth the effort. They’ll be the ones who leave invisible scars.

What are your memories of your childhood teachers? Any that stand out one way or the other? I’d love to hear about them in the comments, once you get through tonight’s Tops!

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