[IliketoPuck]

It is with some reluctance that I am wading back into this thread.

To be explicitly clear, this post is about my personal experience as the spouse of a school teacher, and the perspective I have gained through years of watching my spouse’s successes and struggles. It is not a short post.

For additional clarity, so that you all understand that I know what hard work truly means – I am a former banker who worked 14+ hour days, while studying for the CFA charter and raising a young family. I know what it feels like to get home at 10pm, not having seen my daughter for two weeks while living in the same house as her, studying until 2am, only to have to be back at the office for 6am. I know the feeling of bone crushing exhaustion (both mentally and physically) that comes from working to an extreme. I can identify hard work when I see it.

For even further clarity, my spouse is highly educated and left a higher paying job in the private sector to go back to school to become a teacher. Why? To attempt to make a difference in society. Your society.

Teaching is a draining job, but it is by no means unique in this regard. My spouse works hard and cares about each student and their success. My spouse works in an area of the city where the cultural demographics are dominated by recent immigration, low incomes, poverty, crime, broken homes. At times, my spouse is not simply a teacher. My spouse is a lifeline to these families, and one of the only sources of stability and consistency in their lives. My spouse deals with kids that come to school hungry, have FASD, have multiple behavioral issues, and have parents that come to interviews drunk, or high, or both. My spouse has had children bring knives and other weapons into the classroom, and has had parents physically and verbally assault staff members. A week where the police are not at the school is considered an achievement.

Leaving work at school is impossible for my spouse. There are not enough hours in the day to accomplish the required academic preparation (lesson plans, etc.), myriad administration requirements, and deal with parents and problem children. My spouse leaves the house before I do every morning, is at school 90 minutes before the children arrive, and stays 90 minutes or more after they leave. During the week my spouse takes a hurried dinner while I put the kids to bed, and then works until 10-11pm. There is no extra pay for the uncounted hours of overtime, no annual bonus, no 18 holes on a Friday with the clients, no paid client lunches, no expense write offs. Professional development days (a favorite gripe of some posters) are full work days to try to desperately catch up on work, or to deal with whatever new administrative requirement has been introduced.

And through this all, my spouse attempts to give these kids a chance at rising out of a cycle of despair, crime, and poverty, despite the odds stacked firmly against them. I have personally funded (after tax, out of my own pocket) several thousand dollars of school supplies and educational equipment. Do I get a credit from the government for it? No. I do this in addition to the 40% tax burden I already bear. Why? It’s the right thing to do. It hopefully gives the kids a better chance (they need everything they can get), and because funding for even basic school supplies in our province is sorely lacking.

Why am I telling you this? I’m telling you this because it goes hand in hand with the letter that set off this most recent, and predictable, tirade towards teachers. It is getting really tired, folks.

The letter is completely understandable to me as a spouse of a teacher. Some of you interpret the letter as “woe is me.” I would encourage you to read the title of the article again, before weighing in with your prognostications on all teacher’s work ethic, level of pay, benefits, and pensions. The article is titled “an open letter to the spouse of a teacher.” It is not titled “I think I work harder than a doctor, or a fireman, or a policeman, or an engineer.” It is not titled “my compensation is not fair, I take summer vacation for granted, or I don’t value being a teacher.” It is not titled “I value my contributions to society higher than other vocations.”

It is titled “an open letter to the spouse of a teacher.” Are the challenges faced as a spouse of a teacher different than those of any other profession? In certain areas, yes. In certain areas, no. I can tell you without any shadow of a doubt that my spouse works as hard as I did while I was a banker. Be grateful if your kids ever have my spouse as their teacher.

The writer is asking for support from her spouse. She is asking for understanding. She is attempting to reassure her spouse that she has not forgotten their marriage, the value of their life together, the importance of being present for her family. How that can be construed, as one poster elegantly put it, as “look at me, I’m a special snowflake” is beyond me.

A quote to sum this nicely: “Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn – and most fools do. It takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving” – Dale Carnegie.

Supporting my spouse is what I signed up for when I signed on the dotted line. But I would be lying to you if I said it isn’t draining, or challenging. There are often times when I wish my spouse would quit teaching, and go back to the private sector. We’d certainly be better off in many respects, both financially and mentally. As such, I appreciate the content of the open letter, and empathize with the writer’s spouse. I’m sure the letter only scratches the surface of the struggles they are having. The number of times I’ve had to put the pieces back together, in the last year alone, are too numerous to count.

And therein lies my major issue with this thread, and all of its previous iterations. It becomes circular argumentation in its most basic form. Example: “Teachers get summers off. Everyone should have to work full time. Therefore, since they get summers off, they don’t work as much or as hard as the rest of us. They should get paid less. It is our duty as taxpayers to malign them for being overpaid.”

Posters muse, why is it that teachers are so vocal about defending how hard they work? The answer is because no other profession is exposed to such pure vitriol as teachers. None. A simple article from a teacher to her spouse spawns half a dozen pages of the same crap generalizations that have been rehashed in numerous other threads. To write an open letter to one’s spouse is courageous, and should be applauded. Instead, it is seen as another opportunity to pile on with the same tired points.

The value of education to our province, and its role in our continued prosperity is sorely underappreciated.

Before you criticize my biases, I offer you this:

As an expert in the finance field, working in the private sector, I agree that public pensions are an issue. However, pensions in particular are not unique issues to teachers. They are prevalent throughout the public sector. How they are addressed, on aggregate, as our population demographics shift will be vitally important to the country. So instead of simply railing on teachers, because it is convenient, let’s start talking about how to address the whole issue of defined benefit pension plans for entire public sector. Let’s talk about how to make the entire public system more viable and more efficient.

Furthermore I completely agree that a union protecting all members makes it difficult to get rid of poor performers. However, once again, this is not a situation unique to teachers. Let’s talk about how to improve employee accountability in union settings.

I also agree that there are inefficiencies in the public system that need to be corrected. Let’s talk about how we can improve from the top down. Every dollar we save on bureaucracy is a dollar that improves front line services.

However, I vehemently disagree with the majority of the posters in this thread who make sweeping generalizations about teachers. Including (and most insulting to me) their work ethic. I challenge many of you to overcome your own biases. It does nothing to further the discussion and only promotes further antagonism.