Though my past month here in Wisconsin has been consumed with the struggle against the corporatist take-over of our states budget process (and everything else), life does go on. I still have a half-time job, a husband, two daughters in elementary school, a life!
One of the ways I've been choosing to spend time with my 9-year-old recently has been reading through the Anne of Green Gables books, by L.M. Montgomery. We're on the third one now, Anne of the Island, in which Anne goes to college after two years as a teacher in a one-room school. The book is set some few years before its publication date of 1915. In the story, Anne is the first woman from her community to ever go for a bachelor's degree!
The vocabulary is rich, there's lots to discuss with my girl, and I keep finding astonishingly relevant things as we read -- like the following passage about teaching and teachers!
Below the fold is a excerpt from Anne of the Island, quoted from the Project Gutenberg version of the book (with some added bolding of my own.) Anne's friend Stella, who spent an extra year teaching while Anne went for her freshman year, is writing her a letter. Here is what she has to say about teaching, and how her community treats her:
"I'm tired of teaching in a back country school. Some day I'm going to write a treatise on 'The Trials of a Country Schoolmarm.' It will be a harrowing bit of realism. It seems to be the prevailing impression that we live in clover, and have nothing to do but draw our quarter's salary. My treatise shall tell the truth about us. Why, if a week should pass without some one telling me that I am doing easy work for big pay I would conclude that I might as well order my ascension robe 'immediately and to onct.' 'Well, you get your money easy,' some rate-payer will tell me, condescendingly. 'All you have to do is to sit there and hear lessons.'
I used to argue the matter at first, but I'm wiser now. Facts are stubborn things, but as some one has wisely said, not half so stubborn as fallacies. So I only smile loftily now in eloquent silence. Why, I have nine grades in my school and I have to teach a little of everything, from investigating the interiors of earthworms to the study of the solar system. My youngest pupil is four -- his mother sends him to school to 'get him out of the way' -- and my oldest twenty -- it 'suddenly struck him' that it would be easier to go to school and get an education than follow the plough any longer. In the wild effort to cram all sorts of research into six hours a day I don't wonder if the children feel like the little boy who was taken to see the biograph. 'I have to look for what's coming next before I know what went last,' he complained. I feel like that myself.
"And the letters I get, Anne! Tommy's mother writes me that Tommy is not coming on in arithmetic as fast as she would like. He is only in simple reduction yet, and Johnny Johnson is in fractions, and Johnny isn't half as smart as her Tommy, and she can't understand it. And Susy's father wants to know why Susy can't write a letter without misspelling half the words, and Dick's aunt wants me to change his seat, because that bad Brown boy he is sitting with is teaching him to say naughty words.
"As to the financial part -- but I'll not begin on that. Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make country schoolmarms!"
Here we are, over a hundred years later.
And the "rate-paying" haters are still hatin' on our courageous, dedicated, overworked and underpaid teachers.
When I first started writing this diary a couple of days ago, I was somewhat at a loss for suitable responses. Polite argument on the part of teachers (as the character of Stella reports trying-and-abandoning) hasn't gotten us anywhere. "Eloquent silence," her eventual tactic, gets utterly lost in the Fox-ilk shouting.
But now I've got a couple of thoughts to share.
Those of us who understand the value of our children's teachers, and what they do, need to speak up too -- taking every opportunity to do so. Here's an example from a Madison parent-teacher organization, adopted last week:
In light of current events, we, the Crestwood Association of Parents and Teachers, wish to offer a formal show of thanks, appreciation and support for the teachers and staff of Crestwood Elementary School.
Teachers and staff: You do so much more than teach our kids literacy, math, social studies, science and the arts. Our students represent a mosaic of abilities, talents, cultures, languages and opportunities that is both beautiful and complicated. Nonetheless, every day you come to work ready to embrace the challenges and joys of teaching in a diverse school.
You encourage our kids to grow strong minds and healthy bodies. You make sure they have enough to eat. When they are sick or hurt, you care for them; if they are cold, you find them warm clothes. You teach them how to resolve conflicts and, when they make inappropriate choices, you help them down a better path.
You teach them that maple syrup comes from trees, that plants come from seeds, tubers and bulbs, and that butterflies start out as caterpillars. You show them that the natural world is magical and, through science, help them understand how that magic works.
You help our kids discover their unique voices and express them with confidence through writing, speaking, music and art. You do not tell them what to think; you teach them how to learn. You are absolutely critical in their metamorphosis from children to citizens.
At Crestwood, parents and teachers work together to provide the best possible education for our kids. Therefore, the Crestwood Association of Parents and Teachers rejects language and ideology that are intended to divide us. Our teachers work extremely hard, and deserve both the highest respect and fair compensation. We resolve to fully support the teachers and staff of Crestwood Elementary School and together make our state, nation and world a better place for our children.
And here's another response, this one from a teacher himself, ably diaried yesterday by Eclectablog.
"You're a teacher, Taylor. What do you make?"
Speak truth about teachers, my friends. Say it loud!