The conventional wisdom is that teachers should be satisfied with their wage increases. They should be happy that they don't have to work in the pineapple or cane fields like their grandparents did 50 years ago. Despite the obstacles,
teachers keep up the fightThe women, especially, should be thrilled since they earn just as much money as the men, not to mention all those paid holidays and summer vacations. And yet these civil servants continue to complain about leaking school roofs, falling ceilings, dirty stairwells, cracked walkways, foul-mouthed students and dropping SAT scores.
If teachers can't handle the heat, why don't they get out of teaching and find a real job? What a bunch of whiners.
Well, most teachers do handle the job very well, thank you. But why anybody in his or her right mind would want to go into teaching at this time is a wonderment.
Not a day goes by that somebody in our community isn't spouting off about what is wrong with Hawaii's public schools, with the curriculum, with the teachers.
Even the newspapers get on our case, although teachers are probably the only people in the state other than the Star-Bulletin's circulation manager who cares about or promotes reading the newspaper.
The reality is that the people of this state should fall on their knees and give thanks that these "whiners" care enough about the children and education to do something about it.
Children are the future, and public-school teachers are the true believers in that future. They really believe they can make a difference.
They believe that education is the foundation of a true democracy. That society can only succeed when everyone is given an equal chance to do so. That education is the key to making life's important choices.
This is what I wanted for myself, for my own children and for all the young people I have had the privilege of teaching for the past 12 years.
What brought on all this angst?
Last Friday night, I went down to the state Capitol to join my colleagues in urging the Legislature to fund the teachers' pay package, and to urge legislators to make sure that the money set aside for the schools goes into the classroom.
I went into the offices of senators and representatives, leaving my name and my message. The elected officials and their staff people were gracious, polite and made statements of support.
Therefore, I was taken aback by my intense reaction to the office of the speaker of the House. All I could think of was, "This outer office is bigger than my classroom!"
The room was beautiful, spacious, well lit and air-conditioned. There were black comfortable-looking pieces of furniture, paintings on clean walls, and plush carpeting.
Having spent the previous eight hours in my 30-by-30-foot classroom with my 138 eighth-grade students (average 27.6 per period), I guess the contrast was just too much for me.
I know that this column is not going to change the minds of the legislators, the state administrators or the general public about what's going on in public school classrooms.
Even so, come Monday morning — like all the rest of the other crazies, saints and/or fools known as public-school teachers — I will return to the classroom to try one more time to teach and perhaps make a difference in the lives of Hawaii's most precious assets, its children.
Valerie Baldovi teaches eighth-grade English
at King Intermediate School. The opinions in View Point
columns are the authors' and are not necessarily
shared by the Star-Bulletin.