Island Voices
Teaching experience leaves me exhausted

By Sandra Polhemus
Honolulu Resident

For the past 30 days, I’ve walked in the shoes of a public school teacher. It’s been one of the most humbling experiences of my life. Teaching is infinitely harder than any job I’ve experienced.

First, the workload for an average teacher is way beyond the normal eight-hour day.

Second, you get no respect. Parents, legislators and governors are constantly complaining about how teachers are not raising the performance level of students. Many people blame the teachers directly or indirectly for bad student performance.

Third, the pay is low. Hawai‘i ranks 51st in the nation for teachers’ salaries when factoring in the cost of living.

Why do people become teachers? For me, it was a chance to "make a difference." A teacher I talked to said, "Teaching gives me the joy of knowing that I’ve positively influenced someone’s life." Another teacher said, "Teaching is about caring for kids. It’s about giving them the tools to make it in life."

After 30 days, I was burned out. My high resolve to help society and to "make a difference" had failed to make the grade. I’ve come to greatly admire and respect the many professional teachers who are still in the classrooms. They are performing under incredibly difficult conditions. And the miracle of it all is that most are doing a great job under tremendous odds against them. The teachers I worked with are hardworking, diligent and caring individuals.

If the status quo doesn’t change for the better, we can expect more teachers to leave the profession, as I did, terribly disillusioned about the prospects for teaching in this state. The existing teacher shortage is a reflection of the current conditions.

We need to compensate our teachers with a generous pay raise, to finally bring them to parity with other professions.

We need to show our respect for this esteemed profession by acknowledging the difficulty of the job and appreciating the people who have the perseverance and courage it takes to keep at it, year after year.

We need to reduce their workload and provide more preparation time, more time for team planning and incentives for advanced training.

The state can say there is no money, but people must insist that the state address this need. How can we expect our children to respect the value of education, when we do not respect the teachers who carry the message?

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