Letter to the editor: Please listen to our educators
To the editor:
I am a retired public school educator. I feel it necessary to share what I am hearing from colleagues still teaching:
“It feels like February.”
“I am concerned for future staffing.”
“I had to send a kindergartner out of my classroom for the first time in 15 years within the first two weeks of school.”
“Teachers are exhausted and feel a lack of appreciation.”
“Cellphones are an addiction. I’m in the way of their usage.”
“Hardest year ever.”
“School nurses are drowning.”
“The stories of parent death, drugs, incarceration, divorce, and family fighting, the dirty, hole-filled clothes of some students are beginning to weigh me down.”
“This year is like nothing I have experienced.”
One educator asked her students, “Why are your peers so impulsive and immature?”
The eighth grade student responded, “Their parents ignored them for a year. They want attention and they don’t remember how to do it the right way.”
I know each of the educators who shared their story with me. They are excellent, caring educators from all parts of Kansas.
And, as I write this, it’s only the end of September.
Ruthe Goff,
Lawrence
COMMENTS