Teachers: Our Allies in Parenting

Words to think on as we start a new school year…

This week in Marquette, we parents will have meetings with teachers, open houses, interactions with the school system in anticipation of the school year’s start next week. Wherever our opinions may fall on the matters of the ongoing teacher-school board negotiations and related issues and events, I hope that I and my fellow MAPS parents will keep just a few things in mind.

Teachers chose a path in our world – knowing its challenges, realities and relative lack of fame and fortune – because of a calling. I have never known a teacher who chose their profession out of greed or self-interest. I can think of not one report of a teacher whose aims in selecting the path of the educator were to build empires and amass riches.

Whatever we may think of their opinions, we can be assured that those who answer this call are not ‘in it for the money’. They are there for the children, for the future, for the chance to make a difference. That is what motivates them. And what is it that it motivates them to DO? What it leads them to do is be the primary and critical leader of our children’s’ education, development and prospects for a bright and successful future.

Teachers follow the call to take into their hands a huge aspect of our children’s’ lives – an aspect we are either unwilling or unable to take on ourselves. Teachers are our chief allies in parenthood. They are the people who will get up every weekday morning throughout the school year and be there for our children the majority of their waking hours.

They are the team-mates in parenting who will spend much of their vacation and weekend lives thinking about and to help our children succeed.

This is their primary mission; to be our closest and most crucial allies in raising our children and helping them be the best they can be.  And along with this mission, our teachers shoulder an ever-increasing burden of both their time and personal finances. They take this on with determination, hard work, and a strong, smiling spirit.  And somewhere in there, they manage to tend to their own lives and families.

I hope as we head ‘back to school’ with our kids this year, we’ll remember who our teachers are.

by Keith Glendon

Besides being a caring individual and loving dad Keith writes passionately about the things he feels can make a better community for everyone especially for our local youth.

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