Teachers need to be back in school

After law school, and a particularly unpleasant stint with a large Center City law firm back in 1989, I decided to abandon that high five-figure salary (back in 1989 five figures meant something) and turned to my true love: Teaching.

One day, after having spent the previous evening sleeping on the floor of my office after spending seven straight hours researching some arcane point about property reassessments in Northwest Philly, I printed out my resume and essentially begged any school that would have me to give me a job. I honestly didn’t care what they would have me doing, although since I didn’t have a teaching degree I limited myself to private schools. And God bless them, the Haverford School called me for a mid-year interview, having just lost their French teacher.

The next two years were spent instructing “petit garcons” how to ace their AP exams, and the year after that was devoted to teaching French and Spanish at Friends Select. I ended my five year run as an educator at Villa Maria Academy. To this day some of my old students on Facebook still refer to me as Mademoiselle Fleurs.

I can honestly say that teaching provided me with some of the happiest years of my life. I knew that I was doing something important, that I was having an impact on young people and that there really was nothing more honorable, outside of military service, than going into a classroom and unlocking these developing minds.

Fast forward two and a half decades, to a place where teachers are now complaining about having to go back and do what they profess to love: Teach in a classroom. While I have had some unfortunate experience with teachers unions in the past (as an observer, not a member) I was always convinced that the grievance from the professionals was based upon their desire to better the lives of and conditions for students. It really never occurred to me that someone who would enter one of the “service professions” would be hyper focused on their own needs to the exclusion of their kids.

But that, sadly, is what I see happening these days as some school districts announce that they will reopen in the fall. It is reasonable that some of these adults are wary of being exposed to a virus that has not yet been tamed by science, and which is still wreaking havoc in some parts of the country (even though infection does not equate to mortality). I know that the uncertainties attached to this disease give one pause, and provide significant challenges to reopening the schools.

But by the same token, the only ones I see engaging in finger pointing and “end-times” sort of rhetoric are teachers who do not want to return to the classroom, and their supporters.

I don’t mean to dismiss the real concerns of teachers who might feel particularly vulnerable to infection, including those who are older, have pre-existing conditions or don’t want to expose vulnerable family members to what they perceive as a risk. These are things that can and should be dealt with clinically, rationally, with an eye on the balance between safety and the mental health of cooped up children.

But that is not what we have been doing, because some people see this as just another opportunity to attack a president they despise, or advance some agenda that has absolutely nothing to do with their own health, or the welfare of children.

Months ago I wrote about the toll being taken on high school seniors who were losing out on all of the important rites of passage, markers like graduation, parties, senior weeks and final farewells. Many of the emails I received in response were sympathetic, but also suggested that it was necessary to do everything possible to stop the spread of COVID.

Back then, I grudgingly agreed. Now, as I see teachers in particular (not all, but far too many) moving the chains and pushing back the goalposts, I am beginning to wonder if we even want to see the light at the end of this tunnel, or if it is in the best interest of some people to freeze us in a holding pattern indefinitely.

This cannot continue. Again, the children are watching us. Let’s be worthy of the trust they place in us, and bring them back into a world they recognize, and deserve, before they become used to sitting in their bedrooms with absolutely no human contact. Christa McAuliffe once said, “I touch the future, I teach.” It’s time some of these educators stopped living, scared and anchored in the past.