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Highlands Today

It's time for the public to stand up for teachers

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Highlands Today

Published: September 27, 2009

Our public school teachers did not take a vow of poverty to teach our children. And they also aren't required to give up their home life either. What they are required to do is provide our children with a fine education. Our job is to make it possible for them to do that.

Unfortunately, too many teachers in Highlands County are hitting a brick wall trying to taking on heavier teaching loads, and not enough planning periods, to provide quality education. The district just repeats the mantra that it must either cut back planning periods and add class time or cut positions. Neither should be necessary.

To outsiders, being a teacher might look easy. How long is a school day? What about all those holidays? And wow, they get the summer off. That's what someone who doesn't understand education believes. That's not even close to the story.

In order for teachers to manage all those different student personalities every hour during the day, as well as figure out ways to spark imaginations and share complex ideas, it takes preparation. A teacher who just walks into a classroom and starts reading out of a textbook is not a teacher at all. But we're inching toward that scenario because that's all they are left with.

Properly preparing to teach classes takes imagination, research and mostly time. Most teachers in middle school and high school are teaching an extra hour a day. That means their planning time is slashed. It also means they now do much of their planning at home, as well as grade papers and do other paperwork necessary these days. Precious time with their own families are lost, and that's not a fair or necessary trade.

If we have to force our teachers to provide instruction like this, we are failing them. They are not failing our children. The district is failing them as well for not being their biggest advocates in the legislature, in the community and in their own districts.

For those who don't know, teaching is extremely hard work. A good teacher is invaluable to our society and we have to help them succeed. So why are we hampering their ability to do their best work? It's because bureaucrats and administrators aren't willing to put out the effort for them and the public doesn't have their backs.

It's wrong, and it's time for the public to stand up for teachers.

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