About a week ago, a colleague told me that March 22nd would be a day of EduSolidarity, when all educators who blog or tweet were encouraged to write a piece entitled "Why Teachers Like Me Support Unions."
Having heard more negative talk in the past several weeks about teachers' unions, as well as about teachers in general, than I have ever heard prior, I was excited that the 22nd would fall on a Tuesday, when I publish my weekly reflections on technology, education and life, in Tuesdays with Swindy.
I am thankful for my union for fighting the battles my fellow teachers and I would not fight for ourselves. When we are asked to cover an extra period, give up lunch, prep, or time before or after school, or make any personal sacrifice for the good of our students, most of us don't think twice before doing it. We volunteer our time when we feel it will help our students. It is why we went in to teaching in the first place, to make a difference. So when a school board or district administration makes a decision that causes us to make sacrifices, most of us are very compliant. It is the union that looks at each of these cases and steps in when the sacrifices we would make would cause more of a nagtive impact over the long run, such as taking away our ability to make the greatest impact on all of our students. Chris Lehman spoke to this point today when he wrote: "Teachers unions make sure that individual teachers don’t have to (choose to give up their rights for the greater good) every day. They remind administrators that there are limits. And they remind administrators that for teachers do be able to do this job, day in and day out, year after year, teachers need to be taken care of as well."
A frequent criticism of unions is that they fight for rights that many others in the workforce gave up long ago. As if the great equalizer is to bring us all down, rather than bring back up those who have less in terms of health care and pension or retirement benefits. I am grateful that our union fights for us in these areas, because I believe that we would lose our best and brightest teachers if pensions, healthcare benefits, and set pay scales were taken away.
There are certainly many reasons that the average teaching career is less than five years. The job can be difficult and thankless. But I think a lot of it has to do with money. Many new teachers are right out of college or grad school, not married, and without children, but five years into the job, you'll find many have married and are starting to have families. People with a lot of education and advanced degrees start to notice that their friends with similar educations in other fields make a lot more money than we do. Maybe it was OK to make these sacrifices when it was just one person, but when one's family is involved, new priorities emerge, and many teachers leave for better-paying job opportunities.
My colleagues are among the most educated people I know, holding advanced degrees in their content areas as well as in education and specialized degrees. They are lifelong learners who are constantly taking courses to better themselves as professionals. They are smart people, who choose to teach to make a difference to benefit the future, not because they are the proverbial "those who can't." They certainly CAN, and if teachers continue to lose benefits, I worry they will leave the profession at even more alarming rates.
Teachers do some of the most important jobs in the world, and are not compensated for their work anywhere near their value to society. So many of us would do it for free if we were able. A compassionate group of hard-working, dedicated, enthusiastic, optimistic and somewhat idealistic people is an easy group to exploit... and our unions and their collective bargaining rights help protect us from having to choose between our students and our own families.
For these reasons, I stand today in solidarity with teachers in Wisconsin, New York, New Jersey, and everywhere else who are fighting for the right to have unions with collective bargaining powers.
That's all from me. I'll be back next week with some more thoughts on tech integration in the classroom. I'll leave you with a little of what others are writing today...
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