School's Out Forever

Recently, a good friend overheard a conversation in which one individual claimed that teachers were overpaid. Knowing she feels much the same as I do about educators and education, how she managed to curb a comeback remains a mystery. Should I ever hear a similar comment, I would be inclined to let loose on the person, first setting them straight about teacher pay, then point out the true cost of a lack of education (more on that another day).

Have you ever received a raise only to take home less money because your health benefits that are income-based ate it up? It happens to teachers all the time.

Most of us spend about the same on our college education to launch our careers. But, how many are required to take additional courses to keep our jobs -- at our own expense, no reimbursement? Teachers are, and they do this during those "three months off every summer" that people seem to believe they get.

As for those phantom "three months off", would you be willing to spend that time to attend professional development seminars, work on finalizing records, and readying your workspace for the next term? Teachers use much of that TWO months of summer to prepare for the next school year.

And how many of us are willing to go into work at 7:00 or 7:30 a.m. and work until God know when all for the sake of the students? Teachers are doing this every school day, and sometimes on the weekends. They spend time on lesson plans, grading papers, preparing materials for the next day's lessons, tutoring and mentoring their students, meeting and talking with parents. Some even get involved with local after school enrichment and sports programs.

We all work with people we don't necessarily want to be with. But every day, teachers are confronted by students who don't want to be there. Students who don't want to learn will gain a little by simple osmosis, but they create a disruption for those who are trying to get something from the lesson. Perhaps worse yet are the parent who don't care about their children's education and only see the school and its staff as babysitters.

After 30 years of teaching in one of West Virginia's highest paying school districts, my husband made $50,000 annually. That's less than one-third of the league minimum for Major League Soccer, one of the lowest paying professional sports. Hell, it's less than entry-level pay for an investment banker -- and look at what they've done for you lately! (America really needs to get its priorities in order.)

Break that down by the number of days in the contract -- 180 -- and you get $277.78 per day. Hey, that sounds really good. Now, break that down further by the number of hours spend each day at school (I'm not even going to include the extra hours and days he put in each year). That daily rate divided by eight hours come to $34.72 per hour.

Before you think how great that sounds, remember that the average teacher has a classroom of 25 students. To be paid for working with each of those students, let's divide again. What you end up with is $1.39 per hour per child. You'd pay more than that for some teenager to watch your kid for a few hours on a Saturday night. Damn cheap babysitting, if you ask me. And it's beyond absurd for professional education. Are you willing to work for that? I doubt that you would be.

So why do teachers do it? It takes a special calling to be a teacher, something damn few of us possess. George Bernard Shaw may have been a great writer, but he knew precious little about teachers when he said, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." Beyond what is in the books, beyond the knowledge, teachers must know how to excite young minds, to lead students to discover, to inspire youth. They do it because they can have an impact on a young person's life, both in and out of the classroom. Shaw should have said, "Those who CAN, teach."

Teachers deserve our respect, not disparaging remarks about their ridiculously inadequate salaries. The fact that you can communicate clearly at all is because some teacher taught you vocabulary and composition. In all probability, a teacher taught you to question and to think -- two resources we need to use more more now that our government wants to destroy our educational system.

But that's another rant for another day.

A Working Class Hero is Something to Be

Growing up, my friends and I would walk from my grandmother's house to the pool everyday in the summer. Along the way, we'd make up games about the strange shapes in our town's sidewalks. Diamond shapes marked with WPA and shapes like a can of sardines bearing the letters, CCC. As teenagers, we learned that the sidewalks and some buildings were constructed in an effort to put Americans back to work after the Great Depression.

Another one of those New Deal projects in our little town was the beautiful mural on the wall of the post office. I always was fascinated by how the artist compressed so much about our little corner of the world into one painting. He captured the lazy bend of the Ohio River where our town sits and the farming that once dominated the valley. He showed the nearby underground coal mines and even depicted the famous Spindletop oil well. Most of all, the artist showed people hard at work, doing the jobs that made the Mid-Ohio Valley prosper and grow.

For many years, I wondered who Alexander Clayton was and why his painting was in our post office. I later learned this artwork, created in 1939, was called St. Marys and the Industries of the Region, and was one of several created nationwide by the New Deal Art Project following the Great Depression. The project created jobs for the unemployed and made lasting cultural and infrastructure contributions to communities in need. The beautiful mural in our post office was the only one Alexander Clayton created in West Virginia.

Now, I wonder what the future holds for this incredible artwork that is part of history. Given the current anti-labor sentiment that is rampant in this country, I fear that its days are numbered. Because it illustrates the working class in America and shows labor as a key to prosperity, will it suffer the same fate as the labor history mural in Bangor, Maine? I should hope not.

First, it is a part of history. Whether you like FDR and his policies or not, the New Deal helped this nation to recover and get back on its feet after the Great Depression. These artworks are a link to this time in America, a Federal record so to speak. Living history that we can use to teach our children about the past.

Second, it is a work of art. Art, by its very nature, is subjective -- the artist's personal interpretation of an idea. Censoring artwork destroys freedom of thought and expression, all contrary to principles on which America was founded.

Finally, it is a tribute to labor and the working class. These are the people who built America and believed that hard work was the key to the American dream. With the politicians, lobbyists and corporate fat cats now revealing their true colors toward the working class, anything that shows the strength of labor and the labor movement in this country is in jeopardy.

Including one beautiful mural in a small town in West Virginia.

Somehow, I think West Virginia's politicians may be smart enough to know who butters their bread. At least, I hope so . . .