TEACHER HEROES AND MERIT PAY
I hope everyone saw the news conference concerning the school shooting in Ohio. The coach who chased the shooter away was given a few moments to speak. I hope everyone heard the emotion in the coach’s voice as he spoke about not being a hero and wishing he could have done more.
I wish people could understand that there are teacher heroes at work every day in almost every school in this country. These teachers might not be heroes on the scale of this coach, but they do smaller heroic things all the time. These teachers embrace their students as if they were their own children. They help them fight drugs, gang influences, abusive parents, emotional trauma, miserable home lives, poverty, social problems, and teach them how to cope with whatever problems they are having. These teachers have an emotional connection with their students. They are close to being the competent parent that these kids are missing. They are important role models and pass on many important values that these students will come to embrace.
The concept of merit pay for teachers is basically flawed because of the above mentioned teacher roles as well