For the Teachers

Tomorrow begins a new school year in Michigan, land of the beleaguered teacher. Many of us have taken pay cuts, pay freezes, or learned that we're no longer teaching in the school we've been in for years.

We hear presidential candidates, some of whom have a tenuous grasp on facts, rally the base with talk of eliminating the Department of Education so parents can have the right to teach what they think is best (like myths instead of science). 

We read our local newspaper's coverage of what the "think tanks" think should happen in our schools, knowing all they want are charter schools and a right-to-work state (ask Florida and Texas how those are working).

We read the comments on MLive.com to find out how much we're hated, and how ill-informed those cowardly, anonymous posters are.

We attend professional development sessions that urge us to teach to all types of learners - auditory, visual, kinesthetic - only to find there's no significant research to support that these differences exist.

We attempt to keep up with technology by incorporating Web 2.0 features on our blogs, wikis, Twitter feeds and Facebook pages. Some of us have schools filled with new iPads. But, so far, the research shows these gadgets and gizmos aren't increasing test scores.

Not that we believe test scores are the be-all and end-all, either. We know that it's not necessarily what students learn in school, or when they learn it, that matters, but that they know how to apply critical thinking strategies, and can tell the difference between fact, opinion, and outright lies.

You'd think we wouldn't want to go back to school tomorrow. But you'd be wrong. We go because it's our calling. Our mission. Our purpose. Because we love learning and want to share that excitement with our students.

We go because we know that every once in a while, we'll inspire a student. Some of these kids will actually say we made a difference in their lives. And maybe one, like Charles Blow, will even write an op-ed to honor us:

It was the first time that I felt a teacher cared about me, saw me or believed in me. It lit a fire in me. I never got a bad grade again. I figured that Mrs. Thomas would always be able to see me if I always shined. I always wanted to make her as proud of me as she seemed to be that day. And, she always was. 

In high school, the district sent a man to test our I.Q.’s. Turns out that not only was I not slow, but mine and another boy’s I.Q. were high enough that they created a gifted-and-talented class just for the two of us with our own teacher who came to our school once a week. I went on to graduate as the valedictorian of my class. 

And all of that was because of Mrs. Thomas, the firecracker of a teacher who first saw me and smiled with the smile that warmed me on the inside.

Of course, we won't see that op-ed in The Grand Rapids Press. But we'll see it in the hand-written thank you note from a student or parent, in the smile from the silent kid who gets the subtle joke, or the Facebook post thanking us for making college seem so easy.

So we'll toss and turn tonight, just like some of our students, in anticipation of hearing the halls fill with students carrying new notebooks, of watching them enter our rooms and ask "Is there a seating chart?," and of welcoming them to a new year filled with endless possibilities.

We will go back to school tomorrow. And we will make a difference. For as Henry Adams said, "A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops."