Educators Are Heroes!!

Date: 8/27/2007

To all you past, present, and future educators...I think you might appreciate some of these words. "Where are the heroes of today?" a radio talk show thundered. He blames society's shortcomings on public education. Too many people are looking for heroes in all the wrong places. Movie stars and rock musicians, athletes and models aren't heroes, they're celebrities. Heroes abound in our schools, a fact that doesn't make the news. There is no precedent for the level of violence, drugs, broken homes, child abuse, and crime in today's America. Public education didn't create these problems but deals with them every day.

You want heroes? Last year the average teacher spent $468 of their own money for student necessities-workbooks, pencils-supplies kids had to have but could not afford. That's a lot of money from the pockets of the most poorly paid teachers in the industrial world.

You want heroes? For millions of kids, the hug they get from a teacher is the only hug they will get that day because the nation is living through the worst parenting in history. Many have never been taken to church or synagogue in their lives. A Michigan principal moved me to tears with the story of her attempt to rescue a badly abused

little boy who doted on a stuffed animal on her desk, one that said, "I love you!" He said he'd never been told that at home.

This is a constant in today's society-two million unwanted, unloved, abused children in the public schools, the only institution that takes them all in. You want heroes? Visit any special education class and watch the miracle of personal interaction, a job so

difficult that fellow teachers are awed by the education they witness.

There is a sentence from an unnamed source that says, "We have been so anxious to give our children what we didn't have that we have neglected to give them what we did have." What is it that our kids really need? What do they really want? Math,

science, history and social studies are important, but children need love, confidence, encouragement, someone to talk to to, someone to listen, standards to live by. Teachers provide upright examples, the faith and assurance of responsible people.



Sincerely,

Chris & Dan

Grateful Students & Co-Publishers



P.S. Please, pass this on to someone you know who is a teacher,

or to someone who should thank a teacher today.