Animals
have keen instincts and the ability to recognize disaster before it happens.
When flocks of birds move away from a direction, when other animals flee, there
is a good reason for it. Only people are too stupid to recognize that there is
something inherently wrong.
However,
the same phenomenon has occurred in my hometown, but it’s not the animals who
are fleeing, it’s the teachers.
In my
town’s school district, which I have no part of since I teach at a community
college, teachers during the spring semester resigned en masse. Counting
retirements and formal resignations, nearly 100 educators (teachers,
principals, etc.) terminated their careers. Now the district is fairly large,
but this is still a hammer blow.
Worse
still, this only represents the people who could afford to leave the career in
some form or another. There must be an equal amount (though likely more) who
continued their careers simply because they had no other choice.
The point I
am making with all this is that something disastrous is occurring, but the
school board and the parents refuse to examine the cause of so many teachers
leaving. Parents express concern, and the board attempts to assuage them, but
none are treating it as the serious problem it clearly is.
The
teachers left for a reason.
They flee
the storm and the destruction that comes with it.