teachers

Teachers are people who have chosen the profession of (hopefully) imparting knowledge, creating understanding, assisting in application of the knowledge and understanding, and assisting & motivating kids to attain higher-level thinking skills. Most of those I know are caring, dedicated and work 11 months a year (yes, during the summer) and 7 days a week, 12 hours a day M-F during the school year. Of course, as with any profession, you have lame-os and deadbeats. The pay sucks if you work in one of the "Education? Why Bother?" states, like Arizona. But, watching kids actually try to learn, take standardized test after test (thank you GWBush) and still maintain a sense of humor and enthusiasm makes it worthwhile. On the downside: Parents who are less than useless, kids who are totally unmotivated and chose to destroy the learning environment and the administration that supports that (thankfully not all administrators are like that) for fear of Karla's mom getting angry that Karla won't be moving to 8th grade... Yes, in Arizona if the kid fails every class and misses 85 days of school, the parent can override the teachers' recommendations to retain the kid.