Give Us Back Our Schools

My heart is heavy this morning as I watch the news to see yet another school shooting. The intended target? A teacher.  Recently there was a young teacher murdered after school by a student she was staying to help. I have refrained from writing what I am going to write here because I don’t know how it is going to come out of my fingertips, and I don’t know exactly how you, my reader, will take this, but I feel compelled to write at this point. When I feel so strongly to let my words flow, I have to let them flow.

Dammit, give us back our schools! Over the last few years there have been countless reports of parents high-tailing it to the schools with threats because their child wasn’t treated the way they thought they needed to be, suspended for this reason or that. There are bomb threats from kids AND parents. Teachers, administrators, and counselors have to look over their shoulders at all times for what? Doing their jobs!

Educators make little money and get little respect because they believe in the future of the children and for the record, the children aren’t the future, they are now. They are the present, they are making choices now that will affect them forever and educators are helping to mold and make their ‘now choices’ to help them become who they become. I understand parents work, they are busy, they trust (some of them) that educators know what they are doing, but dear God, let us do our jobs!

We have training, LOTS of training, most of us have multiple degrees and we must, yes we must continue our professional development to maintain our certification. We know what we are doing and for the most part most of us do it well! Do you go to the Dr.’s office and tell the doctor exactly what procedures to do, how to do it, tell him your diagnosis, and how to treat you? Probably not. So please trust that educators know the curriculum, how to handle situations for the best of all the children, and the correct protocol for procedures.

I say this because I am tired of children being raised with a sense of entitlement. Entitlement is the ultimate form of neglect. When children come to school with a sense of entitlement, as though somehow they should be treated differently and rules don’t apply to them; that mom or dad can “get them out of this”, we aren’t teaching them problem solving skills. We aren’t teaching them that, no indeed, life isn’t fair and we all have to adjust to that. We aren’t teaching them to respect authority. We aren’t teaching them that sometimes we may or may not like or agree with everyone with whom we come in contact, but we must learn to respect each other and work together. When children come to school with a sense of entitlement they don’t understand that the adults in their lives really do work together to pave the way for their future and they quickly learn to “play” adults against each other. And when parents step in and tell educators how to do their jobs, they are modeling the ultimate disrespect for authority. Do you think kids will respect the very people who disrespect authority? Absolutely not! They are being taught not to!

Give us back our schools. We work hard to make schools safe, warm, happy places to learn. We work hard to make sure that kids love coming to school and get everything they need and more. When students leave little notes for teachers, administrators, counselors, and other staff it means more to us than you can possibly imagine! We aren’t babysitters and we aren’t a juvenile correctional facility. We are educators. We educate. We comfort. And we do it because we love the kids, we want them to get the best education possible in a warm and loving environment, and we know what we’re doing.  Children definitely deserve the best education available and we want to provide it. But know this; they are not entitled to anything worth killing for.

Becky Wilkenson

December 14, 2013