Louisiana Voice

At long last, it is time for summer vacation. No more books, no more homework, no more worrying about grades, no more concern about failing or passing.

Summer will be a welcome time of bliss to lie back and reflect on the good times—study hall, recess, lunch in the gymacafetorium—times when you can take a respite from the rigors of learning, the stress of test after test in math, science, reading comprehension and social studies.

Dead ahead are two-plus months of not having to hear someone preaching about your not living up to your potential, not giving your all, being inadequate in the classroom, a failure. For a while, at least, you won’t have to listen to all that snorting about how dumb you are and how you just aren’t trying. You won’t have to live in fear of being called to the principal’s office for a few weeks now.

And that’s the teachers.

And if you really think teachers get two-plus months off, you live in more of a fantasy world than Ricardo Montalban did back in the 70s and 80s.

The teachers I know remain behind long after the last bell has rung and the last child has disappeared out the door, off with his or her family for that vacation at Disney World or Gatlinburg or Gulf Shores.

They must pick up notebooks, pencils, gather and store books, move furniture so that school maintenance may come in to strip and wax the floors. After that, perhaps a week or two of rest before returning with new lesson plans. Desks must be re-arranged, books sorted out for distribution. In short, detractors notwithstanding, teachers are overworked and underpaid. No argument to the contrary need be advanced here; we aren’t buying any nickel-and-dime philosophy about three-month vacations.

Think about that rotten kid down the street. We know your kids are perfect, so let’s use the neighborhood hell-raiser. Now lie back in your recliner and just imagine yourself as a teacher having to corral 25-30 kids just like that for seven hours a day, five days a week, 36 weeks a year. Then, throw in the constant face-offs with irate parents who can’t understand why little Johnny isn’t doing better. Never mind that the teacher has sent home notes and sent emails to those same parents calling attention to Johnny’s failure to do homework and classroom assignments. You see, it’s never the parents’ fault.

It’s for dead certain that Piyush Jindal has never thought of teaching as a calling. Ditto for Paul Pastorek and John White. Neither of those three leaders has ever taught a class but they can certainly tell teachers how to do it.

There was a year-end program at a Baton Rouge-area elementary school recently. There were two children who had to be helped onto the stage because of their physical conditions. One was wheelchair-bound and the other was on crutches. It was heart-rending to see these children so young and with such debilitating disabilities that will last a lifetime – robbed of the ability to run and play like other children. But they were included in the program just like the other kids and the care and love shown those two by the teachers and staff was enough to bring a lump to the throat of the most hardened observer.

Those teachers are professionals who go about their jobs with no fanfare, no drama and in the case of our governor – no indication of gratitude for the herculean job they do – each and every day. Piyush Jindal could take a lesson in professionalism and compassion – and humility – from these wonderful, beautiful, heoric people.

Watch a scene unfold like the one we witnessed at that program just one time and we can promise you’ll never be the same again.

The point is, despite all the negativity emitted from the fourth floor of the State Capitol about bad teachers and failing schools—rhetoric designed for no other purpose than to open the door to corporate takeovers to benefit campaign contributors—these teachers were undaunted and they let nothing get in the way of doing their jobs.

The music director of this school does exemplary work with these children year in and year out—as do all of the teachers there. It’s something called dedication – something about which the politicians know next to nothing. But you’d never know it to listen to our governor rant about failing schools and bad, bad teachers. This governor would never acknowledge the good work being done by public school teachers. He is far too stubborn, too hard-headed, too cold-hearted to bring himself to praise the work of anyone other than Piyush Jindal.

If this is the kind of political hack job that makes you proud of your governor, so be it.

As for us, we will stand with teachers.

If you wish to support the practice of handing out jobs that pay six-figure salaries to worn-out legislators who in some cases couldn’t even get re-elected in their home districts and who have nothing to contribute other than padding their own retirement benefits, that’s your choice.

As for us, we will stand with the rank and file civil service employees, the ones who get the job done, the ones who earn their salaries—and their retirement benefits.

We make no pretense of being objective in matters that involve the denigration of public employees: that’s for the “legitimate reporters,” as one administration official recently was so quick to say we are not. So if you choose to degrade and belittle these people, then be prepared for a very rude rebuttal from this side of the street.

We don’t suffer fools and idiots lightly—especially elected ones.

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