What We All Need

What we all need is a lesson in kindness...when did it become so normal to be rude, discourteous, aggressive, just plain mean? I don't remember getting the memo - I don't like it. This guy honks his horn, then burns around me on the right side - missing my side mirror by paper thin inches, then he is stopped in front of me at the red light. What was the point? At the grocery store, the lady cuts in front of me - I try to give a little personal space between myself and the person in front of me, this lady figured that space was for her to cut in. She did not look at me so I know she knew she was cutting. It just did not matter. I had ten, maybe twelve items in my cart. She had twenty, maybe twenty-two items in her cart. Though the item count is pointless. Why would a person feel they could just cut in front of another? I don't get it. Kindness is easy. I believe it takes more energy to be mean. It takes more thought to be mean. I am a teacher. We should be kind. I teach children manners, polite responses - today we worked on appropriate eye contact and hand grip during a hand shake. We ate lunch together. Everyone had to wait until each child was served. When I said that, you would have thought I was telling them they could not eat until tomorrow. Isn't that odd. Proper table etiquette ought to be taught at home. It should not be under my job description, but it is. Often the argument against paying teachers more is because we have long summer vacation. That is true. Though I don't believe we should have all that vacation. Our students are falling so far behind the world's populations - we should be in school year round. That is not economical. NOT because teachers are making so much money. Last week I observed a maintenance man take three days to replace a light fixture. He was in the parking lot at 7:00 am. Went to work at 8:20 - stopped working around 1:30. Three days I observed him and his ladder, up there looking at that light fixture. I hope it works.
The waste in my school alone could make Suzie Orman cry. Schools need to be managed by business people who know how to cut the fat and reinvest in the product. The product being our children, the reinvestment is the people who teach them. If you want quality teachers you have to offer a pay that equals the amount of education and training required to become and maintaining a teaching licence. It is a license we have to acquire. It is a license we have to renew. We have Masters Degrees, a lot of teachers have Doctorate Degrees, and we have to attend 150 hours of professional development to renew our license. Sometimes it is free. A lot of times we have to pay. Good teachers, the teachers you would want your child to have, these are the ones who keep educating themselves - An individual with a Doctorate Degree deserves to make 100,000 a year. That is a bottom line. The odds are the person with a Doctoral Degree, who continues to teach 1st grade is teaching first grade because they love to teach. It is that simple. You can complicate it all you want. If your child was going to have an operation wouldn't you want the most qualified Doctor to operate on them? How much does it cost to have a tooth removed? An appendectomy has to run $10,000. That is a one time operation. Education is a life long gift. Don't you want your child to receive that gift from a person whom really wants to give it? My point was kindness. I have to teach kindness to 4th and 5th graders because they don't know how to be kind. When I started in the public school system the Assistant Principal said to me; "Children take kindness for weakness." She was right. When we show kindness children think we are weak and they try every trick in the book.
And children are mean to one another. Why is that? I don't get it. I do get it. Children live at survival level so being kind has no use. You don't have time to consider the feelings of others when your own feelings don't matter. If you are hungry, dirty, sick, or tired; how someone else feels means so damn little. Yeah, teachers deserve more pay. Spend a week in my classroom. I challenge any CEO to spend a week in my classroom. Do what I do - How about you Congresspeople and Senators? Come on down. Spend a week in my classroom and do what I do - teacher, parent, counselor, crisis intervention manager, case manager, family therapist, police, Yeah, come on down I dare you!