Rock(Education)Hard Place

Rock(Education) Hard Place

John Paul Derryberry

I wouldn't want to be an educator making this big decision right now. The pandemic is still raging and the deadline to open schools is the definition of a hard place and a rock. Can you imagine deciding between:

Allowing millions of kids to fall behind in their educational studies, and maybe we miss out on the kid who cures every form of cancer getting the education he needs?
Vs. 
Possibly killing that kid because you make him go back to school and get COVID-19 and die? 

Let alone the implications of losing even 1% of our qualified educators to this pandemic and the lasting effects which are emotional and psychosocial. Imagine being a 4th-grade carrier of COVID-19 and there is an outbreak in the classroom. A classmate and teacher lose their life. How does that young mind come to grips with that type of trauma? How do the other classmates and affected families interact after that? So I will not armchair quarterback the education system and tell them what they should or shouldn't do because whatever choice they make it's the ultimate lose-lose scenario. 

What I will ask is, can we drop the facade of ideas we have placed on the educational system in the last twenty or so years? Can we drop the idea that they should do more with less at every budget meeting? We find ways to increase police department budgets at every turn, yet the school system money continually shrinks. Scoffing at the idea of paying teachers has been in vogue for years, yet we are finding out that they are a vital cog in the running of a healthy society. First, we make them deal with the anxiety and fear of school shootings while doing little to prevent the next one. Now we belittle their selfless act of choosing to educate by treating them as expendable to save the all-mighty American economy.  We know education is more than just molding our next scientists, doctors, presidents, social workers, and other professions. Education, we know without a doubt now, provides a society that allows the current professionals to do their jobs unhindered. 

Maybe this will be the death of the self-made person in America myth. Because we now know that none of us is able to achieve the success we feel without assistance from parents and our support system, and we know we can permanently write in teachers in that equation as well. I know that I wouldn't be sitting with the life I have if it wasn't for several educators interested in furthering my passion and challenging my thought process. 

The relationship between teacher-student is so profound that we remember their lessons years later—Mrs. Perry for being so lovely to me when I peed my pants in 1st grade at school. Mrs. Dolan showing me what priorities were when my dad was in the hospital by saying, get done what you can, in the 5th grade. She knew my mind was everywhere but school. Mrs. B for making 8th-grade science enjoyable. I finally saw it the way my dad did. Mr. Baker in  English in high school for making me rethink my suicide plan without ever uttering the words suicide or things will get better. 

That's what this group of people does; they make our world better. So the least you can do is cut them some slack during what is hopefully a once-in-a-lifetime situation. No one knows the right way out of this predicament and I trust them in their professional wisdom to make the right call to keep kids safe. What we should do is begin to overfund the schools, pay teachers a lot more, and stop complaining about everything. I wouldn't be where I am without their life-long dedication to educating the next generation. That statement is true for most of us.

The ripple effects of this pandemic will leave far-reaching roots in our new society. One lesson we have undoubtedly learned from this pandemic is that we need teachers a heck of a lot more than they need us. We would as a society best proceed forward, not forgetting that.