A teacher's job is undervalued

The Boston Herald

It was Thanksgiving week, a time when kids, especially young kids, tend to be off the wall. Holidays do this to children. They're like horses on the home stretch who know the barn is just over the hill. All they want is to break into a gallop and keep galloping until they get there.

A teacher's job isn't just to keep them trotting along. It's to make them think about things besides the barn. Things like equations and whole numbers; wars and taxes; stationARY and stationERY. This isn't easy on any day. But before a holiday it's even harder.

So I expected Ann Galvin's class would be a little out of control last week. Her fourth graders were putting on a holiday play for the entire school. Four performances Monday, four Tuesday. I arrived for the last Monday show, anticipating chaos. I should have known better. Ann Galvin was my supervising teacher when I was a college senior. For six weeks I watched how she was with kids. She was strict, but fair; firm, but friendly. She never embarrassed anyone. She raised her voice, but never yelled. She respected every one of the small people who filed into her room.

The children knew this. In turn they respected her. I don't know why I figured this would have changed, but I did. She has been 32 years in a classroom and 32 years is a long time to stay anywhere, never mind in a job that doesn't offer a single adult perk, like a nice lunch every now and then, or an award or promotion. Teachers live Spartan lives. They have lunch duty and bus duty and after school duty. They have to eat with kids. They can't leave the building and meet a friend for lunch. They can't even go to the bathroom when they want. They are on the job all the Tim. They are the job, encouraging, inspiring, counseling, supporting, motivating, disciplining, molding children. They play a huge part in a child's development. And what do they get for this? Little except for what they get back from the children.

They don't get a fat paycheck. They don't get a chance to dress up every day. They don't get to mingle with other adults. They don't get to go home at night and leave their work behind. They don't even get much respect. It's a job without visible rewards. Even parenthood has more. Your own kids eventually grow up and say thanks. Children to whom teachers devote an entire year walk out the door every summer, and a new group walks through the door every fall. There are few thank yous and the job never ends.

It's amazing how we don't think much about this. We put our children on a bus. They disappear. Then they return.

I went to Ann Galvin's class expecting to find that the years had slowed down my friend, made her less enthusiastic, because this would have happened to me. But there she was, still giving everything she has. Her kids weren't out of control, they were in control. Every child had a job. Some were actors, some prompters, some changed sets and scenery, some ushered in visiting students from other classes. As Ann stood on the sidelines and watched, I watched her because I have nine children in a religious class, and I can't get even one of them to sit still. I watched her after the play, too. Let's talk, she said. How do you think it went? Any comments?

Each child was listened to, valued, treated as an equal. She didn't interrupt them, and they didn't interrupt each other. It was just one small play in one small classroom in one small town - just one glimpse of what one teacher has done every day for 32 years. "A teacher affects eternity; no one can tell where his influence stops," educator and social reformer Henry Adams wrote nearly a century ago. It’s a pity that as a society we undervalue where this influence begins.