Teacher Appreciation Week is this week, and there are not enough words in the English language for me to express my appreciation for not only teachers, but the paraprofessionals, administrators, school staff members, janitors, bus drivers, and lunch ladies who have survived Covid and now face another pandemic--lack of respect for educators. Just a couple years ago, we were in Covid lockdown and suddenly parents developed a new respect for teachers. Two years later, educators find themselves under seige because of national media attention regarding topics like the teaching of Critical Race Theory, gender sensitive curriculum, and other controversial topics that just do not exist in our state. Even though our schools have been in person for all but the last couple months of the 2019-2020 school year, educators in Montana have been castigated because teacher’s unions in liberal states wanted to keep school remote and/or require masks. In my 41 years as an educator, I have not witnessed anti-teacher sentiment at the level that exists today, and it is primarily fueled by negative national media coverage.
