Who goes through a worse hell than the typical second-grade teacher?

All that comes to my mind is perhaps the soldier in wartime. But even he is at least given a pack of constipation-inducing biscuits for when the times truly get tough. The teacher is offered no such curative.    

It is inexcusable, and near contemptible, how poorly teachers are thought of in the United States. They perform what is likely the most or second most important duty a member of our society could ever burden themselves with, and, in return, receive wretched salaries and very little of the respect they deserve. Tell a person in conversation that you teach fourth-grade earth science, and you will be taken for either a lunatic or failure — likely both.

No, teaching young minds will never attract each and every one of the state’s best and brightest, but it should attract more. It takes a certain kind of mentality, a certain kind of willingness to suffer and a certain kind of ignorant faith in mankind — the good sort of ignorance, that is — but, importantly, this shouldn’t stop the state from incentivizing employment in the “industry,” if it could be called that.

The issue is in how few really, truly good teachers there are. If, for seven out of 15 or so waking hours a day, we could be comfortable with leaving our children in the hands of any old miser off the street, then this might be a nonissue. The problem is that teaching requires a certain sort of spirit. A rare spirit. A patient spirit.

There are these spirits out there, but they aren’t all going into teaching. Many are dissuaded by the poor pay, and, whether they will admit it or not, likely discouraged — or, at the very least, not encouraged — by what stigmas and stereotypes surround teaching young children.

There are a few ways this could be fixed.

First: More money

Of course it always comes down to money. There are fewer decent people going into teaching, fewer teachers per student and fewer caretakers per child in every grade of every stage of education each year in and each year out. And that’s because there are fewer tax dollars.

Why aren’t teachers paid more? The average salary for a public school teacher in Iowa hovers around that $50,000 mark; characterized by a dumpy range and little room for increase.

For a minute, humor me and imagine a world in which teachers were paid, let us say, the amount your typical Division I college football offensive coordinator (another state employee) was paid — somewhere in the range of $100,000 to $200,000.

This hypothetical, idealized world would be very different from our current one. Suddenly, the duty of teaching our young people, which includes preparing them for our “greater society,” and instilling in them the basic moral, ethical and technical faculties to function as a useful and respectful citizen of this great country, would be a duty hotly pursued. There would be competition, and, as such, there would be an increased quality in candidate and a better job done.

This is of course wildly infeasible. But what of an across-the-board 5 or 10 percent increase in salary? — Purely ill-informed bunkum, naturally. Our state government would never condone such wanton use of tax dollars, on such an immense scale, and in a sector that it has evidently identified as nothing more than a black hole for the sucking up of grievances, funding and grievances about funding.

Second: More help

What if every professional teacher had a caretaker to help them? To keep the children under control, to handle secretarial issues or issues with child health and behavior, and, generally, to lend a hand whenever a hand was needed?

This, to some extent, is the idea behind student teachers. But student teachers are such a rare, capricious, transient breed. What’s needed is a permanent, professional caretaker in the same vein as a nurse’s assistant.

Per the Iowa Department of Education’s “Early Intervention Block Grant Program (Class Size),” 2012-2013 survey, the average kindergarten through third-grade classroom has 20.75 students in it; 17 students — three, and one healthy lump of a fourth less, that is — having been the program’s prescribed goal for a more suitable student-to-instructor ratio.

The issue is in how much of the teacher’s time is consumed by his or her clerical duties; these which require the kind of energy and efforts they are saddled with expending on the sorts of matters any stay-at-home mother or father knows only too well, and is likewise only too excited to fling away, in both a figurative and literal sense, into our public school system for the larger part of the day’s sunshine. But, with the help of an additional caretaker, these teachers would be capable of doing a dramatically better job in actually teaching their students — they would simply have more time and energy for it.

Again, there is the problem here with funding. But if we are ever to begin to heal this horribly-neglected, imminently-important piece of our learning ladder, then we must begin by investing in its stability. We must make terms with the thought of spending money on our worst problems. They won’t go away without it.

Third: More respect

There was a time, not really too long ago, when Iowa had a reputation for education. It was actually at the forefront of the nation’s movement toward the wide-scale establishment of high schools and secondary schools.

As of Education Week’s 2016 state report card rankings, however, Iowa has earned a “C” in the K-12 achievement category. The state is very much middle-of-the-pack by any sort of barometer, and, in my mind, much of this could be attributed to the treatment received by our state’s teachers.

This role of instructing children ought to be near-idolized. These warriors ought to be respected, valued, appreciated and looked up to in the same way faculty members of large universities are, physicians and surgeons of leading hospitals are, courageous war heroes or successful politicians are. Their duty is just as important, just as necessary, just as integral to our country’s success on every level; economically, socially, morally and ethically.  

Good teachers aren’t taught to be good teachers. They might be taught to be better teachers, but they’re all born with the natural ability. I am sure, if I could interview the parents of every successful elementary school teacher in the state — before their child ever even considered a career — I would have been unequivocally told by a staggering majority that their little Annie, their little Mikey was going to be a teacher when they grew up. That they had the right spirit for it. There’s no surprise in this.

The key is in allowing these people to flourish. They need to be paid more, they need more help and their place in society needs to be more than whatever it now is. Our status quo is indefensible.