“If you don’t have a solution to the issue of teachers’ salaries, the least you can do is acknowledge that the issue exists”

Heartfelt Gratitude [War Diaries / Issue 965]

When I read the “Finding the Names” piece written by the woman who updated the list of hostage names and published them in English in a newspaper, I felt compelled to reach out after Shabbos and express my heartfelt gratitude to her.

I’d seen lists of hostages’ names, but many of the names were unfamiliar to me, and I worried about pronouncing them incorrectly. I kept those English-language published lists in my siddur and davened for the hostages daily, feeling a sense of comfort and connection to them.

Your efforts helped create a sense of unity and solidarity among our nation, reminding us that we are all part of a larger family bound together by shared values and a deep love for one another. In a world that often feels fragmented and divided, it was inspiring to see people from all walks of life come together in prayer and support. The impact of your work will undoubtedly be felt for a long time, and I’m grateful to have been a part of it.

Miriam Berkowitz

It Isn’t Over [War Diaries / Issue 965]

As of this letter writing, 13 hostage bodies are still being held by our enemies. Their families have not received closure, they’re still in turmoil waiting to give their children proper kevurah b’Yisrael, and they’re still waiting for a call that their nightmare is over.

We also can’t stop davening for the hostages that are home. They all have long roads of recovery ahead of them, and the same way our tefillos kept them going in deep, dark tunnels, so, too, they need our tefillos to help them recover emotionally and physically.

Name Withheld

Deceptive Math [Inbox / Issue 964]

Mark Twain famously said, “Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.” The manipulation of the numbers in the letter from an accountant claiming teachers don’t understand their paychecks and are really earning a lot is jaw-dropping.

Firstly, the letter writer concedes that teachers spend many hours on out-of-classroom work. However, those hours aren’t counted in her calculation of the hours worked per week. By what right does she rob teachers of the hours and hours, often late at night and in the wee hours of the morning, spent on preparation of the material, crafting worksheets, writing tests, marking papers, and talking to parents?

I spent 12 years in the classroom, teaching high school limudei kodesh, before transitioning to office work. My salary literally quadrupled within a year of leaving the classroom. We’re not even discussing the benefits, which were in a different universe. While I spent more hours outside the house, the number of hours I spent on work increased by a much more modest percentage.  Conservatively, I estimate that as a teacher I spent at least 10-12 hours per week on preparation, marking papers, and other out-of-classroom activities.

While the letter writer asserts that preparation time decreases year after year, it doesn’t decrease by much. It’s not possible to teach effectively without reviewing the material in depth every year, and adding fresh insights to keep the subject matter from getting stale. Also, just as each individual student is unique, every class is unique with its own dynamic, and the subject needs to be taught in a way that is geared to the individuality of that class. New work sheets, review sheets, and tests need to be written every year to conform to the way the material was taught that year, and to ensure that they were appropriate for the nature of that class. And it goes without saying that time spent marking last’s years tests or talking to last year’s parents doesn’t save any time the following year.

The letter writer seems to have a hard time fargining teachers for having summer vacations and Erev Yamim Tovim off.  Teachers give their very neshamos, day-in and day-out. We expect — no, we demand — that our teachers be in top form every day. They also need to take care of their families, and get enough rest to teach effectively. Without allowing them time in the summer to rejuvenate, teachers would burn out very quickly.  And when we expect our teachers to do the demanding work of being mechanech our precious children for salaries that are objectively lower than most other professions, can we not fargin them some small perks, such as having off on Erev Yom Tov?

Given the demands on their time, many, if not most, teachers don’t have enough hours in the week to take on a meaningful second job without jeopardizing their ability to succeed in the classroom, neglecting their children, or damaging their own health. While some teachers may have the ability to earn a second income, this isn’t something that we can routinely demand of all teachers across the board in order to make ends meet.

Elisheva Plotnik

Southfield, Michigan 

Crunch Real Numbers [Inbox / Issue 964]

I read the letter “Financial Literacy for Teachers” with incredulous disbelief. The letter writer wants to “crunch the real numbers” using an example of a teacher making 35k her first year. Really?! Can we crunch real numbers?

I started teaching in 2018. Like the teacher in her example, I taught four hours a day, five days a week, which totals to 720 hours annually. I was paid 9k. That isn’t a typo! 9,000 divided by 720 hours is $12.50 an hour. At a time when the minimum wage in New York, where I live, was $15 an hour!

And that is NOT including countless hours of preparation.

Neither did the article or any of the subsequent letters mention the extra work demanded from teachers with no compensation. When my class had a trip that extended way past my regular hours, I was expected to chaperone anyhow. And, no, I wasn’t paid for it. Plays, decorating bulletin boards, etc., are all “part of the job.”

Would anyone expect a school bus driver to drive an extra route without pay?

Is there another job that routinely starts off hires on less than minimum wage? With no paid time off?

If you don’t have a solution to the issue of teachers’ salaries, the least you can do is acknowledge that the issue exists. It’s unfair to suggest otherwise.

A Star Who Left the Classroom

Lots of Issues [Inbox / Issue 964]

I’m not an accountant, but I am methodical, and so I’d like to go over the accountant’s letter point by point.

Issue one: Teachers work fewer than 20 hours a week. By her own admission, the writer admits to only speaking to teachers in her age bracket. Most educators quickly learn that they need to juggle two or more places of employment every day. For preschool teachers, the day can begin as early as 7:30 a.m. in her role as bus monitor (some schools have that built into the contract so they don’t have to pay extra). Many teachers also work Sundays or Fridays, with some doing both.

Issue two: She says teachers have 12 weeks off during the summer plus Yom Tov vacations. Those 12 weeks are not paid vacations. Most teachers need to find alternative summer jobs. Most preschool and elementary teachers don’t get off much more time than their office counterparts. Most elementary schools in my own large community have turned midwinter vacation into a single Friday and Sunday off. They do give three days of Chanukah vacation as well as most Erevs and Chol Hamoed. But in the spirit of honesty, how many Jewish places of business, besides stores, are open on Erevs and Chol Hamoed?

Issue three: Teachers should work more. Survey any teachers’ room and you’ll find that most teachers are constantly rushing. They are working as both limudei kodesh and limudei chol teachers, as secretaries, P3 teachers, tutors, teaching coaches, lecturers, bus morahs, class advisors, extracurricular teachers, play directors, and so on. These jobs require them to stay late (play heads don’t come home until after midnight) and give up nights or Sundays with family. What other office job requires you to put in so much to make ends meet? Unlike freelancers, they can’t even charge for time spent on the road getting to their next job. Unlike company jobs, there is no free company car or paid gas.

Issue four: Teachers have hours of free time. Classrooms have increased in student size over the years, which translates into more grading, more phone calls, more individualized tests and lesson plans. The explosion in crises and learning disabilities has resulted in teachers needing to educate themselves on signs of abuse, neglect, disorders, cognitive difficulties, and emotional dysregulation. Teachers don’t just meet parents, they meet therapists, tutors, and sometimes even rabbanim.

Issue five: Teachers are uneducated and haven’t invested anything of themselves. Many teachers do have degrees. Many (including myself) have degrees in our chosen field or in education in general. For those who don’t have a piece of paper letting the world know they sat through Art History (I don’t teach either but it’s on my transcript), find me a teacher who didn’t go through seminary. So many of those classes are geared toward future teachers. Beyond that, most teachers voluntarily attend chinuch classes or teaching courses, seek mentors, and constantly read up on the latest in their field.

Issue six: Find another side income, try to bargain for a raise, start a fundraising campaign. Switch jobs… don’t blame your missing financial skills as Klal Yisrael’s failures. If all strained teachers were to switch jobs, what would it look like? Many schools already deal with a revolving door of younger and older teachers. Time and money are being wasted on women who see teaching as a stepping stone to something greater. Vulnerable children are the guinea pigs of the untried. Yet a child spends more time with a teacher than they do with a parent during the week. As a parent, I want that teacher to be kind, patient, and considerate. But excellent teachers are suffering from the ubiquitous burnout. We need her to be at peak capacity to deal with Chani’s dyslexia, Sarala’s unstable family home, to remember Shana’s allergies when she hands out treats, and deal with 25 other complex students in the same hour while getting the material across. Why do teachers have to be superhuman?

The real bottom line is we’re not talking about office jobs. We’re talking about people who have the terrifying and loaded responsibility to take care of your most precious commodity, our most precious commodity as a klal. To imply that they are lazy, ignorant, and selfish is to insult some of the most incredible people Klal Yisrael has. And after all, who is with your child when you are at work?

A Bais Yaakov Teacher

She’ll Learn  [Second Guessing / Issue 963]

In response to the Second Guessing about a grandmother who felt her daughter was letting the grandkids run wild while staying at her house over Yom Tov, I strongly believe that Grandma setting rules and limits in the home, for all members, is important and healthy.

However, as Grandpa put it, your adult married children still need chinuch, and part of chinuch is watching your children make mistakes and learning from them. Whether you agree with the child’s parenting model or not, as long as there is no chutzpah, danger, neglect, or other reasons for concern, you gotta just sit back and watch life unfold. She’s learning and experimenting. She won’t be using this exact method of parenting forever.

Anonymous

A Mother’s Pain [Words Unspoken / Issue 963]

In response to the Words Unspoken from a daughter to her mother about how she’s chosen to keep her infertility journey private, I want to say that while everyone navigates personal challenges in their own way, and I completely respect the need for privacy, I want to share a small part of my own journey, in case it resonates.

When I began facing infertility, I initially chose to keep it quiet. Then I read something that really hit home in Women’s Wisdom by Rabbi Arush. It mentioned how a mother feels for her daughter as if what she’s going through is happening to her own body.  It helped me realize that I couldn’t keep this from my mother — someone who feels my pain as her own.

Infertility can be an incredibly lonely journey. But having your mother by your side, someone who cares for you unconditionally, and is deeply invested in your well-being, can be truly life-changing.

SN

Cleveland, OH

Letter to My Daughter [Words Unspoken / Issue 963]

Dear Daughter,

Life has been hitting you hard lately, infertility is awful — and it’s not just about waiting, though that’s part of the agony.  It haunts me every second of the day.  All I can think of is how much you want to have children. But there is much more to it than the sense of emptiness — there’s the medical side, the one I have no idea of, that you never let me see.

That’s why it hurts to have to tell you to call XYZ. I know you hate making phone calls, I know you never called a dentist or a hairdresser, and I know I have no idea how many times you pushed yourself out of your comfort zone to call Doctors. Nurses. Rabbanim.  Counselors. Fertility organizations.

I know you’ve done things I never thought you could: My daughter who ran out of biology classes, now understands more biology than I ever thought possible. My daughter who couldn’t take the sight of blood might be injecting herself daily with medication. I’m in awe of the way you pick yourself up from the floor, and try again, without a break in sight.

You know Tatty and I aren’t the emotional, gushy type. You think we don’t know what to say, but from where we sit, we are giving you the privacy you seek. With strength we never knew we had, we refrain from asking you things you don’t want to share.

I know you want your privacy; I understand and I give it to you, but I share your pain. It is mine, too.

Everyone else is moving forward, and so are you. On your journey. I watch you grow, I watch your emunah grow, I watch your relationship with your husband develop, and I watch you face disappointment each month again.

I want you to know: I’m your mother, your pain is my pain, and I’m so proud of you, oh so proud.

Mommy 

Unrealistic Expectations [To Be Honest / Issue 960]

I wanted to add to the conversation regarding the trend of teachers leaving the field due to financial concerns. The article spoke very strongly against young, inexperienced teachers, bemoaning the fact that they’re the one leading the classroom now and not-so-subtly labeling the ones entering the field as not the cream of the crop. I wanted to speak up for those young teachers.

I want to clarify a few things: Teaching is an art, experience takes time, and an initial failure as a teacher does not mean you don’t have what it takes to teach. In fact, many of the very experienced teachers who everyone so wants their daughters to have, started off just as inexperienced.

Many teachers don’t come into the classroom and become an instant success. Many have to work hard to get there. And if you really want to stem the flow of those most qualified leaving the field, I encourage you to be kind to these new teachers. Your not-so-subtle disapproval and hand-wringing may be the thing making them leave this important field before they reach the level of excellence they are capable of.

But no, it is not entirely realistic to expect a new teacher’s first year to be a smashing success, nor do I think it is entirely realistic to think one less-than-ideal year will indelibly impact your child.

C.L.

A Shadchan’s Perspective  [To Be Honest / Issue 960]

As a shadchan who has baruch Hashem had siyata d’Shmaya in setting up young people and bringing them to the chuppah, I, like many others, have seen a disturbing trend over the past years that actually hasn’t been brought up so much in the loud discussions in frum magazines about shidduchim, which have certainly taken up plenty of space in recent times: the shtark, serious learning boys, who absolutely refuse to even consider for shidduchim girls going into teaching positions. I, and others in my position, have given up trying to convince such boys to consider girls going into teaching because the anti-teaching attitude has become so entrenched in our society.

To all the teachers, those new and those experienced, who are being mechanech our precious children: Thank you for all that you do, and please realize how much we value your contributions. We know that we need to do everything in our power to reimburse you more than we are, and more than you deserve. Please stay in our children’s classrooms, and know that although it’s taking far too long, many caring people are moving heaven and earth to bring your remuneration much nearer where it should be.

Name Withheld

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 966)