Teacher abuse

Today I thought I would say a little something on the subject of teacher abuse. I am not talking about abusive teachers, (any of those should be summarily fired!) but the heaps of abuse that get piled on our teachers by practically everyone. Parents blame teachers for their kid's problems in school, students often verbally and sometimes even physically abuse their teachers, politicians blame teachers for poor school performance, principals blame teachers for poor test scores. Let's face it, our teachers are asked to do a very thankless job, of inestimable importance, with little economic or social support, in less than ideal situations, for very little renumeration.
When you really stop to think about it, there are very few jobs as important as the preparation of the next generation to be able to become the informed, dedicated citizens we need in a representative republic to take hold of the reins of society.
As more and more parents find it impossible to make ends meet without both parents entering the workplace, we depend more and more on our teachers in schools and preschools to  step up and take up much of the parent's former tasks of showing our children how to become future citizens.
Instead of us recognizing how important this is, we blame teachers for the slightest failures, when parents should be setting examples at home.
Our politicians should be setting examples for our children of tolerance, cooperation, and the benefits of leadership. Instead, they are showing the same type of petty squabbling that was once punished by time outs in kindergarten. In the next breath, they blame teachers for unruly classrooms.
Business leaders once recognized that education was one of the wisest investments, many of the worst robber barons of the Victorian era were generous in funding educational programs of many sorts. Now, "meeting the bottom line" means that teachers buy their own supplies to simply meet classroom demand, and many if not most of our schools are overcrowded, poorly maintained, and frankly, worn out. Students are forced to sell unwanted crap to parents who can't afford it simply to have the funds to maintain their school activities.
When funding is cut, education is always the first hit, and educative administrations are not going to cut their own wages, so teachers salaries are often the hardest hit.
The only benefit we get out of all of this is that only those most dedicated of teachers will continue to teach under such dire conditions, but those same teachers are often the ones who get burnt out in this hopeless spiral of asking teachers to continue to do more with less, for longer hours and less pay, with no thanks but societal derision.
I wonder how many people in any other profession would do the same.
If you are reading this (at this time in my blogging career, that may be doubtful), you can thank a teacher. If you caught any errors in grammar or spelling, you can thank your teachers. If you understood it, thank my teachers. If you feel moved by it, thank any teacher.
Go on. They're waiting.

But let us be clear about one thing, let's stop piling the abuse on one of the most important but least appreciated professions in existence: Teaching.