Previous Story
A thank you to teachers
|
Posted on May 04 2009
Here in Washington, we talk a lot about education. We debate the best standards and the best tests, the best methods to educate children from cities and the country and from islands in the Pacific. We discuss how much money goes to schools, whether the school cafeteria should serve pizza, and how to make school buildings more energy-efficient. But one thing we don’t mention nearly enough is the importance of teachers.
Everyone has a favorite teacher, that one special person for whom teaching was more than lecturing on what the curriculum required. The teacher who cared about your success, whose contagious enthusiasm for learning and passion for the subject matter inspired you and your classmates.
But today it is becoming more and more difficult for teachers to provide that inspiration. Many teach in schools that are literally crumbling around them. Many work with students whose emotional or family problems mean that education takes a back seat to survival. And far too many teachers are working long hours for low salaries, and have to purchase supplies out of their own pockets to help their students.
These challenges and sacrifices are too often unacknowledged. That is why today, May 5, has been designated National Teacher Day, and all this week National Teacher Appreciation week. I, along with my colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives, know that we owe much of our success, our work ethic, and knowledge of the world to our teachers. And it is our wish to say thank you to all teachers.
But beyond a thank you, I also want to promise to be working in the coming months to ease the burdens teachers face every day and make it easier to teach, to instruct, and to inspire. This Congress will be undertaking major reform of the No Child Left Behind Act. When that happens, as a member of the Committee on Education and Labor, I will be thinking not only about improving the educational experience of our students, but also about improving the lives of our teachers. [I][B](Gregorio C. Sablan)[/B]
Gregorio “Kilili” C. Sablan is the delegate of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands to the U.S. Congress.[/I]
