Teacher Woes

I have never regretted my decision to quit teaching four years ago.  It has made our family life so much better and my health has improved greatly.  I was reminded recently of just how fortunate I am to have the luxury of ending my career before official retirement age.  Several weeks ago it was announced that the Indiana state legislator had a bill before the house that would require all teachers to post every lesson for the year on their school website along with all of the materials that they will be using by June 30th.  If a parent did not like what was being taught, then they would have to right to demand that the teacher provide an alternate lesson for their child.  This had to be the dumbest bill that I had ever read.  As if teachers didn't have enough to do, but now they would have the state micromanaging their teaching.  Plus, it would take away all flexibility in the classroom.  Imagine if a student became extremely interested in the Holocaust after learning about World War II and the teacher had to say, "Sorry, we can't talk about that as it is not on the agenda that I had to post six months earlier."  

I noticed that most of my friends that were my age and still teaching didn't post much on social media about the bill.  From hanging out with them I knew that it was because they were used to the stupidity that comes out of the state house in regards to education.  They have resigned to teaching in today's world trying to do what's best for students while working inside the school system or the state's parameters.  It's rare that I hear them complain.  Instead they mostly talk about what positives that they have been working on in their classroom.  That wasn't the same for my teacher friends that are younger than me, however.  Several of them posted non-stop on social media about the bill and other frustrations with the education system.  I agreed with every one of their posts until they said that they wouldn't going to quit no matter what happened.  It sounded altruistic, but I just couldn't support that statement.  

Teachers have been undervalued by society for years and that will not change.  Complaining on Facebook won't make a difference.  There are so many open positions right now in other careers that it just doesn't make sense to stay in a profession that is not only undervalued, but also underpaid.  The time away from family is enough to encourage someone to quit, let alone the disrespect now being paid by the legislators.  I wish that I could be more encouraging, but I don't think that anything will improve in the teaching world until there is a mass exodus of teachers.  I know that it will hurt our children in the short run, but hopefully in the long run it will make the biggest impact and help improve the education system.  That would be the best thing to come out of this ridiculous bill.