Finally, it’s over – the school year that is. Today is the last day for elementary school in my western suburb.

I’m looking forward to a much more laid back summer schedule.

I’m also looking forward to the end of “appreciating the teachers” every time I turn around.

Christmas, teacher birthdays, the beginning of the school year, “Teacher Appreciation Week,” and of course, the end of the year when the “big” gifts are due. And it’s not just the teachers, but all the aids, assistants, and on it goes.

This year’s instructions for “teacher appreciation” week, along with money and cards and anything else one can think of, asked me to, among other things, “send in flowers from my garden” to the teachers, teachers aides, etc. What garden? I’m too busy to plant a garden. I’m busy working to pay my exorbitant property taxes, which even on my little house would be equivalent to the gross national product of some third world countries, which pay the teachers.

Maybe the teachers should be appreciating us? I like my children’s teachers. I’m glad they do their job well. They should. Where I live, teaching elementary school has to be right up there with “most pleasant jobs ever,” especially since the generous but sometimes overachieving parents in my community swarm the school essentially offering to do the teachers’ jobs for them. (I know, I know that can be stressful in a different way but it’s certainly manageable.)

The reason there are literally people standing in line for many teacher jobs is not an exorbitant salary, though right out of college, with no experience and no advanced degree, a teacher at my school will make in the upper 30 thousands. But consider that that salary is only for 9 months work a year, the work is easy and very rewarding for anyone who likes working with kids, the hours are great, the benefits are gold plated, and the teachers can’t be fired!

One teacher at my school, whom I like very much, charges $50 an hour for tutoring young kids over the summer.

Who wouldn’t want that job?

And good for them. I actually think my kids get a good education. Unlike when I was in elementary school in the “anything goes” 1970s, my children are learning the state capitals (and the states in alphabetical order) grammar rules, history facts, you name it – good stuff.

(On the other hand, I think some of the younger teachers these days – along with many of today’s parents – can get rather overwrought. There was something of a panic one year over one of my daughters when she was first grader. She was not a competent reader for the first half of the year. I refused to worry until she was 6 and ½, about January for her. Why? Because since the beginning of time it’s been recognized that the brain physically develops for reading comprehension at right about that time. Sometimes kids will read earlier, but something seems to “drop into place” at 6 ½ which makes that the best time to teach reading. Sure enough, it happened right on cue for my little girl.)

But I digress: it’s as if when teachers walk in the door they expect, or the parents expect to give them, applause. This is along the lines of the twenty-somethings the Wall Street Journal and others have chronicled, who need constant affirmation at their jobs. Some firms now hire companies to throw confetti parties for their young workers, or otherwise help management constantly stroke those young egos.

When I was in my twenties, not losing my job was a good signal that I was doing well.

Teachers are, in the end, employees of us parents. I’m happy for the work they do, while at the same time I expect them to do it well. But I wonder if the “self-esteem” culture which permeates the schools affects the teachers too. (Actually, many of them probably don’t even want all this affirmation nonsense but the infrastructure forces it onto them).

So then, my children are constantly asked to be the carriers of “appreciation” to the teachers, as if the teachers are “sacrificing” for the kids, rather than being well compensated (considering the benefits and job security) to do a job they should be expected do well. Just as my children will, I hope, one day be expected to do a job well for which they are paid, whether or not they get a “confetti party” on a regular basis when they walk in their employer’s door.

The parents at my school organize a “volunteer” appreciation breakfast for the parents who volunteer during the year, and the teachers help organize the event. What about all of us who volunteer very little because either we are I’m working so many hours, to pay things like my tax bill, which supports the teachers, so that I can’t volunteer as much as I would like.

How about if the teachers get together and throw, for all the people in the community not just the parents at the school, a “taxpayer appreciation” party for all the folks whose tax dollars pay the teachers and allow them to work in such an excellent environment?

Now that would be a great lesson for our kids.

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