As the daughter of a single mother who was a public-school kindergarten teacher (who also worked 2 other jobs to make ends meet), I spend a lot of time thinking about how undervalued teachers are in this country and how the pandemic has brought this into such stark relief.

They're not paid enough, there's this idea that bc school ends at 3 and teachers have summers off, their job is easy. And these days they're expected to be shields for bullets and risk infectious diseases in buildings no one wants to spend the funds to update.

There's so much emotional labor to teaching as well. And administrative labor. Weekends are for grading and catching up on whatever you don't have time to do during the week bc students are human beings and no matter how much you plan, things go off the rails.

My mother spent every penny she didn't need for us on her classroom bc public schools, even somewhere liberal like Massachusetts, are underfunded.

Is every teacher perfect? No. Are some people who are teachers not a good fit for the profession? Certainly.

But good God, the environment in which they are asked to care for our kids and help nurture them and help them grow intellectually are brutal.

Their lives matter. They shouldn't be asked to sacrifice themselves to guns or COVID or any other circumstances we wouldn't want to work in ourselves. Our solutions need to involve teachers, not ignore them..

I don't know why I'm ranting about this at 9pm on a Saturday. I just have a lot of respect for K-12 teachers right now (and my university peers but our struggles are somewhat different) and always. I know you're tired to the bone. I see you.