Thinking of our Michigan teachers on Labor Day

Labor Day is a day of tribute to our work force; it’s also a day where Michigan teachers are working like crazy!

School starts tomorrow for Michigan public schools. While most of us will enjoy today–an extended weekend with an overcast sky–teachers are finishing their preparations for the start of another school year.

Today, I’ve found myself pondering the difficulties our students and teachers face. Over the last few years, I’ve asked my friends who are teachers, “How are things in education?”

Every person has said something to the effect of, “It’s a tough time to be a teacher.”

100% of them.

That should concern all of us, whether you have a child attending school or not.

* * *

My friends are quality, experienced teachers. They’ve seen the pendulum swing in education and politics. They’ve overcome obstacles, and they love teaching kids.

But we’ve gotten to a moment in American society where teachers are attacked. Politicians treat teachers like they make too much money.

When I was hired for my first year teaching in 2003, I made 28K.

Honestly, I don’t know how first to fourth year teachers can support themselves. Rent, student loan payments, car payments–add it up.  How would you make it without living in the parents’ house or working second and third jobs?

Let alone, many teachers suppliment their classroom supplies with their own money.  I easily spent one month’s rent payment on extra classroom supplies when I taught.

Furthermore, In no other profession do we mentally separate the money that funds the field with the person doing the job.

If you hire a lawyer, you recognize you pay for the person’s time and expertise. Same with an accountant, or a writer doing PR or marketing. Even a musician!

Yet in teaching, our politicians have seem to forgotten this.

And I’m going to say it: the public has too. Or at least we’ve gotten complacent. We know our teachers have it tough, we know that we need a quality educations system, but we go on with our days.

This is the year where we need to make a change. We need to support our teachers, and it starts in small ways.

We’ve seen the discussion addressing funding for our Michigan roads change. It didn’t take long after our last winter for most folks in our state to push back and expect our Michigan government to figure out that they need to fix our roads. (Sure, the funding hasn’t happened yet, but at least there was a major shift in the discussion once a lot of people paid for new tires or new axels on their cars. “Holes in our roads are like dental cavities; ignore them and they get bigger.”)

That same shift in conversation needs to happen for education.

The public needs to get involved and pay attention to school funding. We need to read past the hyperbolic statements of the campaign season from both sides of the political aisle. We need to tell our representatives that we expect education to be funded properly.

* * *

We need to show students and teachers we care.

Today, I want to wish all of my teaching friends well as they look to another school year.

Tomorrow, I hope all of us keep them in our thoughts. Let’s pay attention. Attend a school board meeting. Volunteer for a day. Give a donation of a gift card for extra supplies to a teacher.

And most importantly, let’s demand our Michigan government supports teachers. It starts with writing a letter or email to your representative today; it continues with casting a vote in November.