National Day Of The Teacher And Other Calendar Issues

The National Education Association has declared that today is the National Day of The Teacher. (But not in California, that's May 11th.) Many classroom calendars are marked accordingly.

The National P.T.A. has also officially designated May 1-7 as Teacher Appreciation Week. Some school office calendars are so labeled.

Interestingly, the Bush Administration has concurrently declared May 1-7 as National Charter Schools Week. This event must certainly be so noted in Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings' desk calendar.

Our Local School Board has passed resolutions in honor of both the California Day of the Teacher and Teacher Appreciation Week. Of course this is not written on any calendar, but I read the Board's minutes, which is the only place where it will be mentioned.

Which is strange....because...

With all this recognition, We know that we shouldn't resent the fact that teachers in our district haven't had any sort of pay increase in the last 3 years, despite the fact that our test scores have continued to improve.

We all have to learn to appreciate inflation, and nothing makes inflation an easier concept to appreciate than a multi-year salary freeze.

Of course our district's administrators don't need to learn to appreciate inflation. That's because they have been given pay raises each and every year. (This year: 4.5%)

And shouldn't these commemorative days make us feel better about the fact that class-sizes in our district are now much larger (35 students in each class) than when I started teaching 13 years ago?

We teachers should appreciate the professional challenge that teaching larger groups of unruly junior high school students offers.

Smaller class sizes? Class size only matters if one cares anything at all about teacher morale.

Of course I realize that with all this recognition of teachers and teaching, we should be grateful for the time-clocks that our district is considering requiring us teachers to "punch." (This would so reinforce the notion that teachers are "professionals."-heh.) ---------------------------For the latest edition of The Carnival of Education, please click here. Don't forget to send Carnival entries this week to Jenny D's place by 10:00 PM (Eastern) tonight. Get the details right here.

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