Teachers are professionals, and they deserve to be treated that way

When I look back at my youth, I am reminded of how teachers were a respected part of the community. My dad, who saw no use for education beyond high school, felt that teachers held the same social status as doctors and lawyers. My dad's milk route took him to every school in Madison, Wisconsin, public and parochial. It made things a little tough on me in high school, where the principal, Milt McPike, would take the time to chat with my dad as he unloaded his truck (until my dad lost his job due to union busting). Mr. McPike would remind me that he and my dad chatted every morning. Even with Mr. McPike keeping a close watch on me, I was not a very good student in high school. But, there were many teachers who influenced me at Madison East High School. Mr. McArdle (Aerospace), Mr. DuVair (Biology), Mrs. Bayer (English), Mr. Piddington (English), Mr. Sample (Auto Shop), Mr. Ross (World Civilizations), and many, many others.

Here it is 30 years after my high school graduation and I still remember them. I still remember piling into Mr. McArdle's yellow station wagon to go on a field trip to the airport, and Mr. DuVair's biology classroom with all sorts of creatures preserved in jars of formaldehyde on shelves throughout the room. Or walking into Mrs. Bayer's classroom the first day of ninth grade English to find her standing on her desk reading Shakespeare aloud as we came in, and Mr. Piddington pushing me to read ever more complex books, and then writing what I had learned from them. Mr. Sample calmly walking a student through fixing damage he did to the family car and reassuring the student that he would not tell his dad. Watching Mr. Ross teach about other parts of the world that a bunch of Midwestern kids could only dream of, yet he made us feel like we had actually visited those places.

In the 30 years since I graduated from high school we as a society have gone from valuing teachers and all that they do to treating them as if they are moochers who are overpaid for the nine months of work they do (they put in more hours during the school year than most people do in 12 months) and that anyone could teach. In Wisconsin the idea that anyone can teach has been taken one step further. Join me below the fold for details.