Letter: Teachers are caring professionals

To the Editor:

I respond to the article “House approves laying off teachers based on performance.” (Feb. 18)

I am 84 years old. My last experience in education was as a school counselor at Goodhue High School. I have three college degrees.

I was once under the guise that teachers were recognized as professionals as well as human beings. The Legislature has managed to place teachers in a position where they can no longer touch a child without fear of being written up.

Everyone needs to feel they are loved, but it is no longer safe in school halls. (And police are there to take care of all the problems.) Teachers in the main are very special people. They tend to love their students. I am still in contact with many former students.

I suggest teachers accept the fact that they will no longer be treated as professionals. This means they are free to arrive at 8 a.m. and leave at 4 p.m. There will be no need to take home papers to grade or converse with any parent or student outside of office hours.

I say that whatever is valid in evaluating teachers should also apply to legislators. Maybe they could arrange an association similar to what the private trade schools have done.

Self-accreditation seems to bring no penalties and no opportunity for redress by a graduating student who has little or no chance of being employed in the field in which he or she trained.

Think of the student aid these students received — our tax dollars at work!

If I were to return to counseling in a public school I would need to be in a glass cage. I would not be safe in the halls. Who would want to come and sit in a glass cage with me? I would not be able to summon a student from a classroom without everyone wanting to know.

I can’t understand why anyone would want to do substitute teaching.

Philip Johnston

Red Wing

Tags: opinion, letters