Love Letter #8, Teachers

Dear Teachers,

Remember when we left for spring break and thought we would be right back? It seems like an entirely different world ago.

Well, shit, this probably isn’t what you thought your year would look like. Teaching over Zoom, helping 6 year olds figure out how to mute/unmute, sit still in front of a screen, do projects on their own, manage nervous parents, all of the above. You are doing the impossible, in the midst of a global pandemic. You probably spent your summer acquiring brand new skills -at your own expense- to take care of our children. When we do get too impatient to wait for school to be safe, you will risk your physical wellbeing and that of your family to teach our kids in person.

You are deemed essential, without any increased compensation for it. You are largely left out of the decision making process about what your year will look like. You are mostly (74%) women, which means you are likely balancing care of your own loved ones in addition to caring for ours. You are goddamned heroes. Your pay should reflect that.

We don’t always know when we are in the moment that will define a generation. This is the rare occasion that we do. You all are ushering, guiding, nurturing our kids (all of our kids) through the time that will unequivocally define this generation of students. It will predicate the career paths they choose; epidemiologist, teacher, nurse, activist. It will shape their values and inform the purpose that drives them for the rest of their lives. You will be helping them understand what it means to live in a pandemic, a racial reckoning, all while you teach them to read. There is nothing this virus doesn’t touch and you all are providing one of the stabilizing forces of this time. Because of you all they see that nothing stops their teachers, not a global pandemic, not a system engineered to fail them, you, *most* of us. You all show up no matter what. They see that.

I see my kids missing their friends, missing you all, missing physical play. But, I also see them gaining a whole new set of skills that may be readying them for the world they are going to inherit. They are talking about hard things all of the time. They see race and the ways that we show up to challenge the systems that were built to preserve power for few. They have slowed down in so many ways. They are not hustling to soccer practice, they are watching things grow and seasons change. They are listening to their caretakers consider and balance risk, hope, and action. They are learning from you all new ways of showing up in community and that learning can happen everywhere.

You all deserve so much better care than we take of you right now. Better benefits, to earn enough to live well in the place where you care for our very future, the security to hang up your tools at the end of your career and enjoy the view. In the meantime, you have our love and our fight.

Thank you for all that you do.

Love,

Martha