Teachers are heroes

November 12-18 is Retired Teachers’ Week. I would like to praise the heroes in our schools.

Too many people are looking for heroes in all the wrong places. Movie stars and rock musicians, athletes and models aren’t heroes; they’re celebrities. Heroes abound in public schools, a fact that doesn’t make the news. There is no precedent for the level of violence, drugs, broken homes, child abuse and crime in today’s America. Education didn’t create these problems but deals with them every day.

Last year the average schoolteacher spent $475 of his/her own money for student necessities and classroom supplies that children and school districts needed but could not afford. That’s a lot of money from the pockets of the most poorly paid teachers in the industrial world.

Schools do not teach values? Wrong! Public education provides more Sunday school teachers than any other profession. The average teacher works more hours in nine months than the average 40-hour employee does in a year. Just ask those who live with them. For millions of children, the hug they get from a teacher is the only hug they will get that day. Go to your local school and see how our real heroes are changing lives for a better America. Allow no good teacher to be left behind!

Lucille Reeder