I recently discovered a post from 13 years ago while reviewing some old websites I’d created. Some pages were worth saving, such as those I created for Boy Scout trips. The following is another such post, which I’d written to capture some observations and opinions that formed while watching coverage of protests in Wisconsin in 2011.

OK, so this is 13-year-old content and not seemingly relevant. However, the timing of my rediscovery struck me, since it’s back-to-school time and the subject of teaching and education is a topic on the national stage.

Without further preface, here is the article, lightly edited for 2024 (family changes, new info, grammar).

NOTE: My wife is a teacher. My parents were teachers. My older son and his fiancé work for the Special Ed department. My younger son’s special needs mean he is dependent upon adequate education funding. We have friends who are teachers and work in school districts. I have an obvious bias. Despite that, I consider teachers an investment in the future of our children and our country.

Watching the events in Wisconsin — the protests, the speeches, the commentary — I think I finally figured out why teachers need unions.

It’s not to ensure that these teachers working with our children are treating the kids respectfully, sometimes better than the kids’ parents.

It’s not to ensure teachers get out of work at 2:33 so they can go home to spend the night correcting papers, developing lesson plans, or buying supplies with their own money.

It’s not so they can be laid off every summer, yet still spend a few weeks of that break working on plans for the coming year.

It’s not so there’s a watchdog ensuring that teachers are giving kids the skills they need to succeed in life, like reading, writing, math, critical thinking, social interaction, research, and problem solving. Nor is it to ensure that teachers foster in kids that love of science, math, reading, computers, debate, and music that will help them grow into the adults that will lead America and the world through the 21^st century.

It’s not to ensure that teachers make the children care about learning when kids’ own parents never did.

It’s not to ensure a teacher can’t be held accountable for the performance of students or to ensure a teacher cannot be fired, both of which are irresponsible misconceptions.

It’s not to ensure that teachers help kids get the education they need to get a good-paying job that will support their future families.

It’s not to require that the teachers know not only the materials they are presenting, but how to teach that curriculum.

It’s not to ensure that teachers help kids understand that ignorance and prejudice are not acceptable, or that there is nobility and heroism in standing up to bullies and racists.

It’s not to ensure that the teacher knows how to manage 25-35 children for 7 class periods a day, while keeping track of learning plans and grades for each one.

It’s not to ensure that the teacher listens with patience and grace when parents yell at them for the failing grade their child earned. Just like it’s not to ensure the teacher listens to requests for extra points because parents are unhappy with their child’s honor roll ranking. 

It’s not to ensure that a child still focuses on learning, despite experiencing things like bullying, the changes of adolescence, poor quality of home life, and parental divorce.

It’s not to ensure that the teacher wakes up in the middle of the night because a child has stopped caring about his or her homework. Or had a dream about adopting a child to save them from poverty, neglect, or abuse.

It’s not to ensure the teacher gets to buy a well-rounded lunch in children’s portions that includes words like “reconstituted”, “hamburger gravy”, and “ketchup as a vegetable”.

It’s not to ensure the teacher carries on with what is often a thankless job.

It’s not to ensure that the teacher knows what it means when a former student returns with words of gratitude years after graduation. Or that the teacher will hold onto those words like precious currency that cannot be spent.

No, teachers do these things all on their own. Because it’s their job. Because it’s their calling.

Teachers need a union so they have someone to stand up for them when politicians and commentators come after them for – (checks notes) – apparently making too much money, being too well rewarded, and being un-fire-able.

Teachers need a union to stand up for our kids’ rights and to say it’s not alright to close a school in parts of the city where children need it most.

Teachers need a union to have someone represent them when it’s suggested that cutting the salaries of 8 million school employees will buoy an economy of 333 million people.

Teachers need a union to ensure that they can spend their time caring for, raising, and *teaching* our children instead of fighting for a cost of inflation raise that doesn’t fit into a government budget.

Teachers need a union because we need someone to protect those people who have the heart, the brains, and the balls to do something most of us cannot.

And that’s what I think about that, more strongly today then I did 13 years ago. Go hug the teacher, paraprofessional, or other educator in your life. School’s starting soon.

Mike

BTW: If you’re interested in similar pieces where I’ve used my writing abilities to advocate for others, click this link.

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