My mother, Marion Tubbs Williams, was a teacher in upstate New York. She received two semesters of instruction in something called a training class right after high school and went to work in a two-teacher school not far from the family farm. She had to help with the milking, drive the milk cans to Richland to meet the train, drive back and get ready for school before she could teach. Later she managed a year at the teachers college in Oswego, got married, and commuted more than 40 miles to classes during the typical deep snows in that region.
She taught in a three-teacher school in Redfield for six years before pregnancy (me) forced her to quit. After her husband died, she went back to teaching in Redfield for several years before getting a job as a first-grade teacher at Mexico Academy & Central School in Mexico. By the time she retired, she had earned her bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree and was about to earn a doctorate after spending most Saturdays and summer weekdays in class.
She was a talented teacher, devoted to her children. In Redfield, she always visited the homes of all her students in the first, second and third grades, urging vaccinations and reading.
I was lucky enough to have mostly good teachers all the way through college. My children were also lucky enough to have mostly good teachers as they went through school.
I want all the state’s children to have a good educational experience.
All the above is why, though I didn’t march today in Raleigh with the teachers, I support all of their goals.
- Provide enough school librarians, psychologists, social workers, counselors, nurses, and other health professionals to meet national professional-to-student standards;
- Provide $15 minimum wage for all school personnel, 5 percent raise for all ESPs (non-certified staff), teachers, administrators, and a 5 percent cost-of-living adjustment for retirees;
- Expand Medicaid to improve the health of our students and families;
- Reinstate state retiree health benefits eliminated by the General Assembly in 2017;
- Restore advanced degree compensation stripped by the General Assembly in 2013.
Shouldn’t you support those goals?
One Response
I support teachers, but I don’t support all of their goals or tactics of this protest. For example, it is not a teacher concern about expansion of Medicaid. Teachers as individuals can have a position on that issue, but is not for the teacher’s union to politicize. Also, I think it is not proper for teachers to march in Raleigh a May 1st when they should be in the classroom with the children. May 1st is Mayday and is the holiday of communist party. Is May 1st a coincidence? Maybe among some individual teachers, but certainly not with the organizers. Mayday was chosen on purpose. That is scary considering they are indoctrirnating our children.
Due to all of the above, I believe that teachers have lost a little bit of credibility.