Education

Some thoughts today on teachers.

I listened last night to the Vice Presidential debate and heard very few references to education, to teachers and to the unwritten responsibility that all lawmakers have, local to national, to insure the sanctity of our educational system.

We all understand, with the possible exception of an earmarking Congress, that budgets are necessary, cuts are necessary and we must live within our means. Too often, however, education budgets and teachers' salaries receive a disproportionate amount of trimming and I suspect that thinking still persists.

If we spent on education subsidies the equivalent billions that we spend in fighting wars in just one month's time, America's educational system would be the envy of the world. Since that is not going to happen there is something else each of us can do to show our appreciation to teachers.

Teaching is the noble profession. How many of us cannot think of at least one teacher who influenced our choices, our careers, our character.

It is unfortunate, in our gifted society, that money is often the only form of compensation. What is blatantly missing from the education ledger is appreciation through praise.

Every parent should go to the nearest teacher and say thank you. Thank you for your dedication, for choosing a profession where hours are long and pay low, where influence is vast and gratitude minimal. Thank you for enduring the frustrations of bureaucracy and sometimes dispassionate parents. Thank you for your tolerance and patience in instructional repetition to the daydreamers, the slackers, the frightened, who forget they need an education just to get by, and thank you for your enrichment of the geniuses who may grace our society with greatness.

Teachers are special and blessed, for once they share knowledge with others, teach discernment, logic, ethics, reason and the love of learning, a piece of them lives forever.