THE SONIC BOOMER
It is that magical time of year again — the time of year parents rejoice in and children dread. It’s back-to-school time. To soften the blow (and line their pockets), retailers throughout the land herald back-to-school shopping as a fun necessity. In our family, it’s merely a distraction. “Don’t think about being locked up six hours a day, kids! You’ll be wearing new outfits!”
Personally, I am torn about back-to-school time. My degree is in early childhood education, and I got an A with five pluses on my thesis when I wrote that college had taught me that I did not want to become a teacher. The bureaucracy; the questionable across-the-board testing; the loss of individuality as 25 to 35 kids are gotten onto “the same page” in order to be advanced; the fact that many are often advanced without even knowing where “the same page” is… I could go on.
There is also the dismal-pay-for-teachers problem, resulting in education often losing its best and brightest to the Real World. But that didn’t bother me as a college senior. I had no pay, dismal or otherwise. Still, in the long run, the students suffer.
The pay situation bothers me now because I feel that, in 2020, teachers’ unions let these people down. As the pandemic raged on and people were tearing their hair out trying to keep their stay-at-home kids focused on their studies while “limiting screen time” — ha! — the unions should’ve thought like businesspeople. They should’ve asked for the moon. They would’ve gotten it. But they didn’t. That’s on them and, in the long run, the teachers suffer.
Yet none of that concerns my nine-year-old granddaughter, Tess, in the slightest as she romps gaily from rack to rack in the girls’ department, flinging clothing and shoes and underwear and jewelry (!?!) into our cart. Her mother gave her a budget limit of $100, which used to sound like a lot and now sounds like one shoe. Actually, Tess got no shoes (because she insisted she didn’t need any), and that freed up her wallet for the always-coveted jewelry (which she didn’t need either, frankly).
But it was a fun girls’ day, during which no one discussed teachers’ pay, teachers’ quality, teachers’ unions or anything even remotely related to teachers or school. Color coordination, sizes, fall fabrics and what’s in fashion were the order of the day. Tess left the store holding multitudinous shopping bags up over her head and delightedly proclaiming, “Now this is what a girls’ day looks like!”
For her, I guess. But I could see her mother adding up receipts in her head, and that’s when I offered to pay for a fancy lunch.
And I could afford it because I never became a teacher.
