Posted by
SL Gordon on Saturday, January 17, 2009 10:00:00 PM
Before I ask my question...let me describe my life...
I live in a very modest apartment, drive and economy car and live from paycheck to paycheck. I shop at Wal-mart, Costco, Save-a-lot, Family dollar and all those other top of the line outlets. I get up by 5 am so that I can be at my place of employment by 6:30 at the very latest. I am already concerned about what I don't have done that will be come up to bite me later in the day. I arrive at work, hastily try to make sure everything I will need to access in the next 4 hours is in place and go to supervise people in transition from one location to another for 30 minutes.
Then my first clients arrive. I see a new group of clients every 30 minutes except for a 30 minute slot to plan for all these people and and another 30 minute slot to eat, use the facilities and get ready for the afternoon crew. Within the course of a week I see 370 clients twice each. I need to be concerned about each one's emotional well-being and provide a home away from home for them. When I am done seeing them for the day, I work, attend meetings and trainings for another 2-3 hours before going home, collapsing for a while, and then breaking out the work I brought home with me, that I wil never finish and that I will worry about tomorrow. My fellow employees who are "regular" folks rather than "special" have fewer clients, but must meet an overwelming mountain of state and federal regulations and daily report data about their clients in the hope that we will still be able to be employed next year.
Are we doctors, or lawyers? No, you guessed it, we are teachers. We are required to find the best in every child that walks through our doors. The quality control and materials management areas do not pick just the good kids for us deal with every day. We teach those who parent themselves. We teach those who have no money. We teadh those who have everything and whose lives are filled with activities but not with caring parents. We teach those who are brilliant and those who have extreme learning difficulties...often in the same class. We teach children who know all of society's rules and others who have rules of their own that we have to figure out in order to reach them. We teach children who are so hurt inside that they cannot meet our eyes or have to strike out because they don't know what else to do. It's all just in the course of an average day.
Oh and for those that think..."oh but you get those huge vacations!"...by the end of December we are so exhausted we can't see straight...and the summers, which are getting shorter and shorter, are taken up with trainings. We don't get paid in the summer unless we voluntarily strech our 10 month pay to cover the other two months...and the "breaks"? We pay for those too through deductions from the pay in other weeks. So our already "non-professional" salaries get eaten up even more...especially if we pay bi-weekly union dues to protect us from people who don't have a clue. This year in my county we actually were lucky and got a 2% increase. Many other local dstricts cut salaries and positions.
Right now, I don't know about your state, but in Florida we are suffering a huge budget shortfall (I don't know WHERE all that lottery mony goes). We know as of this date that my county has to cut $26 million. What was the first question on the survey about what should be cut? "Should we cut some of our support and non-core instructional positions?" That would be me. Because I teach music which for some reason...even though probably half the people on this site have some sort of band or chorus background that enriched your life....music and art are considering non-essential. Wonder what the early Greeks and Romans would think of that?
So after working extremely hard all year, I am wondering if I will be in the job hunt again soon.
So my questions is... WHERE IS THE BAILOUT FOR EDUCATION??????????? The future of our country is at stake and no one cares.