History in the Land

As I was opening my email this morning, I saw that one of our staff members had forwarded a request from a teacher.  We receive many requests at our shop for donations for fundraising, but this request was different.

This was a go fund me request for pencils and journals for an elementary classroom in our area, that appears to have been sent out as a bulk request to many people and local businesses.

In my mind, pencils and journals are not a major cash outlay, and this kind of project should be funded by supply funds allocated to this teacher’s school principal.  So my first question was, why didn’t this teacher simply ask for the money from her school.  It’s the beginning of the school fiscal year and such a small and reasonable request should be honored.   Then I thought, maybe this is a first year teacher who doesn’t know how to request funds and support for special projects.    Then I thought about the time it took to set up crowd sourcing and to send the link to all of the organizations that she knew.  I thought about the administrative fees that these sites often charge.  I thought about the value of this teacher’s time and what she could have been doing instead.  I thought about the degree of insecurity and anxiety the teacher must feel to take the step of asking the general public to crowd source a simple set of notebooks and pencils.  This is only one teacher in this school.  What are the conditions for the other teachers?  How much stress is placed on the students because their teachers are operating under stressful conditions.  This request is the tiniest symptom of the culture that disenfranchises is professionals

We do not live in a third world country.  How can we condone a system that demeans teachers such that they need to fundraise for each classroom?  This teacher needs to work in an environment where she is valued as the professional she is and given the support she needs to create a vibrant learning environment for the children of Idaho.

Vote. Vote with consideration and knowledge of who is running for office.   Vote in change that empowers educators to create places where teachers are encouraged to be professional educators who foster learning among their diverse students and do not have to worry about how they can get pencils into their students’ hands.