What Teachers Make, or
Objection Overruled, or
If things don’t work out, you can always go to law school
By Taylor Mali
www.taylormali.com
He says the problem with teachers is, “What’s a kid going to learn
from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?”
He reminds the other dinner guests that it’s true what they say about
teachers:
Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.
I decide to bite my tongue instead of his
and resist the temptation to remind the other dinner guests
that it’s also true what they say about lawyers.
Because we’re eating, after all, and this is polite company.
“I mean, you¹re a teacher, Taylor,” he says.
“Be honest. What do you make?”
And I wish he hadn’t done that
(asked me to be honest)
because, you see, I have a policy
about honesty and ass-kicking:
if you ask for it, I have to let you have it.
You want to know what I make?
I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional medal of honor
and an A- feel like a slap in the face.
How dare you waste my time with anything less than your very best.
I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall
in absolute silence. No, you may not work in groups.
No, you may not ask a question.
Why won’t I let you get a drink of water?
Because you’re not thirsty, you’re bored, that’s why.
I make parents tremble in fear when I call home:
I hope I haven’t called at a bad time,
I just wanted to talk to you about something Billy said today.
Billy said, “Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don’t you?”
And it was the noblest act of courage I have ever seen.
I make parents see their children for who they are
and what they can be.
You want to know what I make?
I make kids wonder,
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write, write, write.
And then I make them read.
I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely
beautiful
over and over and over again until they will never misspell
either one of those words again.
I make them show all their work in math.
And hide it on their final drafts in English.
I make them understand that if you got this (brains)
then you follow this (heart) and if someone ever tries to judge you
by what you make, you give them this (the finger).
Let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true:
I make a goddamn difference! What about you?
5 Responses
I saw this for the first time about four years or so ago, and it STILL makes me well up. I DO make a difference, and I’m proud of my profession.
Yeah, teachers are pretty much the most underpaid people on the planet for what they do. Lawyers are probably the most overpaid, next to Goldman Sachs and the rest of the gang of thieves on Wall Street…
My mother, who always said she did not like teaching, taught elementary kids for a full career, and retirement. I have friends who teach.
A story:
There was a lady, a teacher, I used to bump into at a nice little bar in Boca Raton. The teachers there in Palm Beach County were at or near contract time and were asking for a raise. Although that county has some of the wealthiest areas in Florida (or, indeed, the nation), it is overall pretty benighted (it is a vast county, perhaps the largest in area east of the Mississippi). So this lady was talking to me in the bar. Not drunk, a genteel glass of wine. She was decrying the level of pay, and how good teachers were being lost, etc.
I told her I agreed, and asked her whose money she wanted. She looked at me in a nonplussed sort of way, and asked what I meant. I just said that for her and her fellow teachers to get more money, someone was going to have to give up that money, either others paid out of tax revenues, or the taxpayers themselves, and that if the teachers, the teachers’ union, wanted more money I felt it incumbent upon them to say what the expected the source to be. She got really angry, accused me of being insensitive, and stormed out. I never saw her again.
So, of course teachers are underpaid relative to the importance of what they do. Let’s figure out a source of money to pay them more. I agree completely, but never forget, it’s a zero-sum game. Somebody has to have less money for the teachers to have more money, we just have to decide, as a society, who that will be.
Back when some folks in Florida were pimping for a state lottery, the siezed upon Education (capital “E” here) as a point of persuasion. All the profits from the lottery were to go to Education in Florida. Of course, hundreds of millions of tax dollars in Florida were already going to Education, with very mixed results, and a huge additional sum sounded great. The lottery was instituted, and the money flowed.
Here’s what happened. The lottery money was alloted to Education, but the Education budget wasn’t increased. How did that happen? Well, the lottery money just replaced the general revenue money going to education, and the general revenue money was spent on something else.
I pretty much laugh during election cycles when they talk about Education.
I had some really good teachers in my small Midwestern public school experience. One of my regrets in life is that I never went back, or wrote, to thank one of them in particular.
Mary Ward taught English to juniors and seniors. The “college bound” students, or whatever it was called then. She saw something in me, and pushed hard, even to the point of embarrassing me in class once or twice! I owe her a lot for love of literature, reading in general, and whatever ability I have to write coherently. I think what she gave me made college and law school pretty much a breeze for me.
I wish I had thanked her.
Ah yes, one of my favorite videos. I watch it several times a month. I did teach for 3-4 years at university but funding being what it is, I opted for steady employment in the private sector.
So why watch the video? Because, for me, this is Mali’s point:
“I make them understand that if you got this (brains)
then you follow this (heart) and if someone ever tries to judge you
by what you make, you give them this (the finger).
Let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true:
I make a goddamn difference! What about you?”
It isn’t about “what teachers make” so much as it is about whether you make your decisions in terms of how you think other people think you should live your life measured by the almighty buck OR deciding to do what is right for you (using a non-monetary yardstick). In short being self-actualized.
My IT job (which supports such diverse activities as cancer research, children’s health care and drug rehab research) also makes a difference… and no I don’t make as much as my buddies in Silicon valley. But that has never been important to me.
Must’ve had a good teacher or two along the way 🙂