Teacher Shortage...

 

© August 7, 2022, the Griot Poet

 

There is not a teacher shortage in Japan.

A friend of mine taught English on the island nation to kindergarteners,

For that, she made as much as engineering wage earners,

So revered is teaching

That when any one of her students was absent due to illness,

Each mother would get a relative to watch their sick child,

While they attended kindergarten - to take notes,

So that their child would not fall behind their colleagues,

I repeat:

There is not a teacher shortage in Japan.

 

There is not a teacher shortage in other OECD nations.

 

OECD means the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,

A forum where “the governments of 37 countries,

“With market-based economies collaborate to develop policy standards to promote sustainable economic growth,”

“For more than 50 years, the OECD has been a reliable source of evidence-based policy analysis and economic data (state.gov)”

 

That worked when we believed in shared reality and facts,

Two things anathema to that: alternative facts and fascism.

 

In GDP rankings,

Luxembourg, Ireland, Switzerland, and Norway precede the United States,

We rank sixth after Canada, Japan, Israel, South Korea, and the United Kingdom in education,

PISA - Programs for International Student Assessment, in 2018 had the US:

 

25th in average scores for math, reading, and science,

37th for mathematics (out of 37 nations),

18th in science,

 

Yet you want teachers,

To teach the lie that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery,

To alleviate your feelings like 650,000 citizens didn’t slaughter each other,

Romanticized in cartoon re-enactments,

Such that,

Some modern-day Know-Nothing MAGA rubes want to do a round TWO!

 

To teach the lie that life on this planet appeared 6,000 years ago,

Climate change and lower lake levels revealed dinosaur tracks in Texas river beds millions of years before,

To repeat the lie that

Adam and Eve coexisted with dinosaurs,

Like Wilma and Fred Flintstone,

That there is a controversy in Evolutionary Theory,

Used to make every vaccine in history,

Or anything else that makes you queasy,

Politicians are like demagogic strongmen,

Punching down on those who they consider weak,

Demonize what used to be a respected profession in the US,

For contributions from corporate benefactors,

Because teachers barely have unions and can’t afford lobbyists,

 

News flash: there is no teacher shortage in the US.

There ARE thousands of qualified people who want the respect they used to see for the teachers who taught them to get,

 

They don’t remember their teachers having to reach into their meager salaries to pay for classroom supplies, that the district didn’t budget,

Or a meal for a child too proud to say she needs it,

Their teachers didn’t have propaganda echo chambers 24-hours aligned against them,

Maligning every effort, they tried to build a “more perfect Union,”

By educating its citizens,

Making education a criminal act:

 

An educated citizenry is the foundation of democracy.

 

Yet, you’re screaming at them about masks and “freedom” during a worldwide pandemic, at a PTA meeting,

 

“So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so, for tyrants are active and ardent and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

 

“Truly, whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

 

Those two Voltaire quotes might as well have been the sheet music for January 6th.

 

Teachers are tired of your bullshit!

Teachers are as tired of prepping lectures on Zoom as you get your kids ready to receive them!

 

Ever tried to lecture seven one-hour classes per day wearing a mask with ONE bathroom break?

Do you think that you’re UP to the task?

Ever tried to proctor an exam over the Internet?

After Uvalde, students who THOUGHT they wanted to be teachers are having second thoughts about this,

The Austin American Statesman made it explicit,

Almost 400 “good guys with guns” will not come and save them,

The muzzle velocity of a 9mm is 375 m/s,

Compared to an AR15: 1,006 m/s,

Blocking bullets only work for Wonder Woman in cartoon physics,

If any WANTED to go to war, they’d volunteer for military service,

 

There’s a teacher shortage in the US because so many are quitting.

 

It’s not that they don’t love your children,

They’re [just] tired of being the punching bag for your frustrations,

Showing up at PTA meetings and in their classes,

Shouting “tyranny” isn’t fixing anything!

You’re angry with the American oligarchs whose greed caused:

 

Inequality, Sexism, Racism, Homophobia, Societal violence, Science Denialism,

 

Like the “Wizard of Oz,”

Pulling strings behind the scenes with legalized bribery,

Since the Orwellian Citizens United vs. FEC,

Dark money flowing from oligarchs here and overseas,

 

Who are you [really] beefing at, friend?

I’m the person who is trying to educate your children!

 

I don’t own a single House Representative or US Senator,

I barely have a retirement pension,

I am the foundation on which civilization

Progresses or diminishes,

 

I’m a teacher: 

Either get a degree, a state license,

PASS an FBI background check (so, there are NO groomers in classrooms),

Try student teaching to at least see if you would LIKE it,

Write a class lecture for an ENTIRE semester,

Stay up past midnight grading hundreds of papers,

Run interference on two knuckleheads determined to take each other’s heads off,

Over a young woman who written both of them off,

Or pulling apart two young ladies fighting for the same boy walking down the hallway with a third side chick,

I work 367 days a year, eight days a week, 25 hours on the clock,

What are you doing?

Dialing for dollars and going to fundraisers in air-conditioned comfort,

Putting in 107 days per year at last count,

Was that you tweeting during your time in impeachment trials: for what? Likes? Trolling points?

For any other job, this would be a firing offense.

You didn’t birth yourself or get elected without help,

 

Pay us what we deserve for getting you into Princeton or Harvard,

Pay us what we deserve for daily scrapping in the trenches your policies created, trying to save this republic, or, quite frankly, back the FUCK off!