This year's Hogeye Marathon was in Springdale rather than the usual Fayetteville. Between miles six and eight, I chatted with a first-time marathoner. I asked her what she does for work. She said she had been a middle school teacher for four years. I asked her if she liked the job. I knew what was coming.
She wanted to say that, of course, she loved her work. She wanted to say that there was nothing more fulfilling than laboring in the field of learning.
She wanted to say these things because they were the reasons she had gone into teaching. She had wanted to make a contribution. She had wanted to help youth find their way. She had been idealistic.
There were things she wanted to say, but they weren't true so she didn't try. At the same time, she didn't want to say what was actually in her mind. So she used the vague and indirect language employed by the disenchanted who don't want to acknowledge that they're disenchanted.
But I had heard teachers talk this way many times before, and I knew the litany. I asked questions, and the truth came out.
She went into teaching because she had wanted to teach. Before she started, six classes a day seemed do-able. Where would the time come for grading and preparation? It would come in the evenings and on weekends. In other words, the job would consume her life. But if it brought a high sense of purpose, then that would be a price worth paying.
But what if, in addition to preparation at home, six hours of teaching every day, routine meetings and grading on evenings and weekends, the teacher was also tasked with filling out endless forms conjured by education industry bureaucrats who care a lot about "pedagogy" but can't say a thing from the soul about a love for learning?
And what if, in addition to trying to teach, the teacher is also effectively required to act as a babysitter, security guard and social worker? What if the teacher finds herself trying somehow to compensate for the absence of fathers and myriad other forms of family collapse?
What if some of her 13-year-old male students are addicted to Internet pornography and turn everything into a crude under-the-breath joke?
What if educational seriousness is choked out by one political fad after another? What if 10 percent of your students don't speak English? What if a large number of your U.S.-born students are barely literate? What if a majority of students never see adults with books in their hands or hear adults having anything approaching a meaningful conversation?
What if school administrators comprise a gaggle of shocking mediocrities who busted their rumps to get out of the classroom only then to turn around and boss the few teachers who struggle to remain committed to the cause?
What if sports, momentary feelings and texting are more important than learning? Or the latest theories dreamed up by university departments of education, few of whose professors would ever stoop to trying to teach six classes a day?
If all of these things were true, then teaching would be impossible. Teachers would give up: Some would abandon the career; others would stick around but stop trying.
My fellow marathoner didn't say all of this, but she didn't have to. She did say that maybe she would go back to working in the bakery. Or maybe she would get a master's degree.
Around mile 12, I was nearby and happened to see her abruptly stop and then start limping. She said she would finish the race even if she had to walk. I hope she made it to the finish line.
As for teaching, sustained commitment to it over many years approaches the heroic. Good and true teachers are rare, and they deserve a lot more than they get.
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Preston Jones was a pacer in this and last year's Hogeye Marathon.
Editorial on 04/15/2017