Adam Welcome - Teachers Deserve It: What You Deserve. Why You Dont Have It. And How You Can Go Get It.

Introduction

Addressing the Elephant in the Room

Teachers Deserve It started as a discussion over dinner at a table full of educators and turned into a conversation we continued to have with educators around the world. From all these conversations, we learned we have not only a responsibility but an obligation to share the experiences of dedicated educators across the globe.

Its hard to read the news or scroll social media feeds without seeing something negative or distasteful about educators, from editorials disparaging teachers going on strike and walking out for higher pay and benefits in record numbers to clueless commenters saying teachers work for the summers off.

In school systems all over the country, teachers are demanding better pay, better benefits, smaller class sizes, counselors, librarians, support teachersthe list goes on and on. Its easy for many Americans, within and outside of education, to recognize that our teachers need more. But it goes beyond need.

Were here to tell you that teachers deserve more.

Adam Says

In the Bay Area, where I live, a teachers salary is well below the poverty line, and some districts simply cant recruit teachers because they cant afford to live in the same town where they teach. In San Francisco, for instance, the average teachers annual salary is $55,000, and the poverty line is around $59,000. Those numbers together just dont work.

When I was a principal, many of the teachers on my staff were super commuters who drove 90120 minutes each way or lived like college students, with multiple roommates just to make ends meet.

Rae Says

When I originally began teaching, I had very little understanding of what I was getting myself into. I had no idea what a teacher deserved because what teachers deserved was rarely discussed. In my mind, teachers had it easy. Come on... they dont even work over the summer, right?

Nevertheless, within the first six months of having the title of teacher, I was coping with immense stress, counseling students who were taken from their homes, and planning personalized lessons each day to meet the needs of my diverse learners, and Id been subpoenaed to speak on a students behalfall while living on a nearly unlivable wage.

From our own experiences and in talking to colleagues, it has become clear that teachers are not getting what they deserve and something has to be done.

Dont get us wrong: its not just about the money. Teachers deserve much more than a larger paycheck each month.

Teachers deserve respect. Teachers deserve time. Teachers deserve strong leadership.

Teachers deserve a whole lot.

This is not a book that demands that those who are ignorant of the struggles in education learn about the hardships of teachers. Nor is it a book focused on placing blame for the lack of change in the educational system over the last century.

This book is a call to arms for a movement.

This book asks teachers to take a stand for what we deserve and begin the process of controlling the narrative. Teachers must learn to share their stories out in the public sphere and must seek out other educators in their networks doing the same. It is more important than ever for teachers to project their voices so we can have lasting change.

This book is for leaders. No matter your leadership position, you should be ready to advocate for teachers and build them up, and never forget what its like to be in the classroom full time. Do all that is humanly possible to listen, support, and advocate for your teachers. Stand behind them, next to them, or in front of themthats what is needed right now.

This book is for teachers. Complaining is not a strategy and will only get us further away from what we deserve and what we need in order to successfully support the students we work with. Having a solution-oriented mindset is positive, its proactive, and its what will lead to the greatest change.

Therefore, this book is filled with easy-to-implement ideas for teachers, leaders, and anyone working with students. At the end of every chapter, we have included a #TeachersDeserveIt Educator Experiment that will push your thinking in new ways to broaden your perspective as an educator.

This book is also an attempt to humanize the teachers who are waking up every day and giving their very best for the students they work with. Were putting names to faces and their whys to the profession. We want you to see that teachers are human, theyre parents, theyre voters, theyre sons and daughters of teachers, and they often have a long lineage of educators in their family. Theyre real and they deserve respect, because what they do is the most important job on the planet.

You cannot change people, but you can influence them to choose change. Why?

Because teachers deserve it.

One

Teachers Deserve Appreciation and Respect

T eachers can get a bad rap; weve seen it for years. A lack of respect and appreciation has permeated our culture for far too long.

Youre a teacher because you want summers off?

Youre a teacher so you can be home at 3:00 p.m. every day?

Youre a teacher because you couldnt do anything else?

Wrong!

Youre a teacher because you care about kids. And you know how to build relationships with them in order to help those children maximize their full potential socially and academically. Teachers so often put their own needs before their students, because thats what teachers do.