Taking Care of Our Teachers

Photo by airfocus on Unsplash

At the best of times, teaching is a demanding, stressful profession. Without factoring in COVID-19 and all of its challenges, it ranks in the top 10 of careers that can cause depression. Prior to the pandemic, 30% of teachers were leaving the profession within their first five years. Many teachers were already facing a lack of resources, violence in their communities, and the threat of school shootings (almost 500 between 2015–2020) aside from daily, classroom-oriented demands. Many teachers can’t even afford to live in the same community where they teach. Now, on the crest of the vaccine wave, amidst talk of learning loss and summer school, we have no idea what the depth and breadth of the true toll lock-down has had on kids and teachers.

While many people acknowledge how important teaching is and how hard many teachers work, the lingering perception of “glorified babysitters” who laze around all summer persists. Though it’s unclear how many parents will hold onto this tired trope after wrangling their own children for months, there is still widespread vitriol directed at teachers about resisting a return to the classroom. An article claiming that teachers are “abjectly selfish, hyper-political, and totally intransigent about teaching during the pandemic” echo the absurd stance that somehow, teachers are just whiny dilettantes who aren’t even willing to try, even amongst the stories of…