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Send a letter to the editor to P.O. Box 1600, Dawsonville, GA 30534; fax (706) 265-3276; or email to editor@dawsonnews.com.
DawsonOpinion
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3,2022
This is a page of opinion — ours, yours and
others. Signed columns and cartoons are the
opinions of the writers and artists, and they
may not reflect our views.
An open letter
to Ga’s public
schoolteachers
DEAR
TEACHERS:
Let me begin my
annual message to
you as I am going
to end it: Thank
you.
Thank you for
your willingness to
go back into the classroom once again this
year in spite of every roadblock imaginable.
A lot of your colleagues have thrown in the
towel and decided that the teaching isn’t
worth the hassle. It is and you know it
because you have a chance to make a posi
tive difference in young lives. Not many of
us can say that or do that. You can. And you
do.
You do it in spite of bureaucratic red tape
and often conflicting directives from the
federal government and the state govern
ment and the local school board. Each with
a silo view of how and what you should be
teaching but none responsible for the results
-just you.
Over the past couple of years, you have
experience challenges for which none of us
were prepared, teaching remotely through a
pandemic as if you needed any more trials.
Trying to ensure you had your student’s
attention, hoping the technology would
work and knowing that Georgia Milestones
tests would be evaluated no matter the cir
cumstances. But you hung in there.
Now that you are back in the classroom
face-to-face, you have to contend with a
shortage of staff - cafeteria workers, main
tenance personnel, bus drivers and the like -
but you can’t postpone classes because of
those shortages. Learning goes on.
It was not only good but fitting that you
got a nice $5,000 raise, thanks to Gov. Brian
Kemp and the General Assembly. It helps
that Georgia, unlike many states in the
Northeast and Midwest, is flush with cash.
It looks like we’ll end the budget year with
a $5 billion surplus, so why not reward you?
But don’t forget the Great Recession from
2009 to 2012 which saw a major decline in
state tax revenue. Lawmakers quickly cut
school funding and teachers and school staff
furloughs were common. The state giveth
but when economic times get tough, they
will taketh away in a heartbeat.
Pardon my cynicism but it is an election
year and our intrepid public servants will be
sure to remind you of the pay raises they so
graciously granted you and how much they
respect your good works because their
mother/sister/cousin/uncle/whoever was a
schoolteacher.
But beware of Greeks, or in this case, leg
islators bearing false gifts. As soon as they
are reelected, they will go back to Atlanta
ready to cut your legs out from under you
with their voucher schemes so that well-to-
do Georgians can send their kids to private
schools while getting a tax break. The same
legislators who loved you when they wanted
your vote will lament the sorry state of pub
lic education, which includes you and your
efforts. Mark my words, it will happen. Be
prepared.
The voucher crowd wants to conveniently
forget that there is no way to keep society’s
issues - hunger, abuse, drugs, gangs, tran
siency - from coming in your classroom
and that instead of running away from the
challenges you face, they should be trying
to fix them.
Although I will occasionally split an
infinitive like an atom or forget to move a
decimal point where it belongs, I got a pret
ty good public school education which
translated into a rewarding career, thanks to
teachers who taught me the basics and made
sure I learned them.
Now, there is pressure to make you soci
ologists. There are those who want you to
take students on a guilt trip regarding our
past behavior and ignore the gains we have
made and are making. In Georgia, we have a
Black woman who has a serious chance of
being our next governor as well as Black
and Jewish U.S. Senators just elected. That
is progress and is the kind of thing we
should be focusing on and not dredging up a
past that is gone with the wind.
And violence. What has happened to our
society that we now fear becoming another
Sandy Hook or Marjorie Stoneman Douglas
or Uvalde? While special interests groups
argue murderers vs. gun control, you have
to live with the prospects of violence each
and every day. I pray it never happens but
please be vigilant.
Obviously, I haven’t told you anything
you don’t already know. So I will end our
conversation by wishing you the very best
as you begin another school year. Thank you
for what you do. I am glad you are there.
DICK YARBROUGH
You can reach Dick Yarbrough atdick@dickyar-
brough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, GA
31139; online atdickyarbrough.com or on
Facebook at www.facebook.com/dickyarb.
DICKYARBROUGH
Columnist
©2022 Creators Syndicate Creators.com
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<DR A RC0T CANAL?
The way weve always
Someone
made a com
ment the other
day that made
me grimace -
hard.
No. it had
nothing to do
with my age or
my weight.
It was a phrase that is
innocent enough, as the one
saying it usually means it’s
harkening to tradition and
values.
“That’s the way we’ve
always done it.’’
I tried not to have a vis
ceral reaction but I couldn’t
help it: if my mouth doesn’t
say it, my face definitely
will.
Usually they join forces to
conspire against my better
sense and betray me.
But this time. I felt my
face twist the minute I heard
the phrase and I recoiled as
if I’d been struck.
“We’ve done it that way
for as long as I’ve been
here” was the second verse
of this familiar hymn.
Not sure if it was uttered
as a mea culpa or a notion of
pride, but just because some
thing was done a certain way
for a long time doesn’t mean
it’s right.
So many questions ran
through my mind as
a response to this
line of thinking but
I didn’t even know
which one to ask
first.
We can get so
stuck in a rut that
we may think just
because that’s the way we’ve
done something for a while
that it makes it a good thing.
Einstein defined insanity
as doing the same thing over
and over and expecting a dif
ferent result - this can apply
to a lot of situations.
“It’s kind of a tradition,” I
was told.
Tradition is great. It is.
But sometimes, we cling to
those long-worn ceremonies
and have no idea how they
got started or why we still
do them. Doing things the
same old way, just because
of tradition, is not honoring
anything. It’s merely going
through the motions, free of
any respect or tribute.
I wonder how many things
we’ve clung to out of that
servitude to tradition that
needed to change.
By sticking with those
antiquated approaches, we
may find ourselves boxed in
with nowhere to change or
grow.
When we can’t change, we
get really stuck, and that can
sometimes mean, we get left
behind, too.
I think of all those busi
nesses who were resistant to
moving towards virtual and
remote work during the pan
demic over the last few
years; a few had some strug
gles, but some adapted easi
ly because they leaned into
the change and didn’t focus
on how they had always
done things.
That fear of change can be
scary, whether it’s us taking
a leap of faith in how we run
a business, how we shop,
how we do anything.
Granny used to say if we
do what we always did,
we’ll get what we always
got.
And sometimes, the old
gal would add, that may be
all we want or can handle at
the time.
Maybe that’s why we
cling to those traditions so
tightly.
That may be all we want
or can handle for whatever
reason.
“Some people are content
to be where they’re at
because they feel like that’s
their lot in life,” Granny
would say.
Do we hold on to those
traditions that keep us stuck
SUDIE CROUCH
Columnist
done it
because we feel like we
don’t deserve better? Or is it
simply because we’re maybe
held hostage by a supersti
tion that if we do something
different, it won’t work at
all. It can be a scary thing,
settling for where we are
just because we’re scared we
may step out and achieve
something we really want.
“We haven’t jumped on
that bandwagon yet,” that
person continued. “Not sure
if we will, either.”
I nodded grimly.
I didn’t ask why not. I
didn’t question what was on
the other side of that fear,
that could maybe help them
take a huge leap forward.
I knew.
They were scared to do
something different because
they felt like the way they
had been doing things had
been just fine for a while,
even if those things could be
better.
Just because that’s how
it’s always been done
doesn’t mean it’s the best.
Change can undoubtedly
be scary, but even scarier, I
would think, is being stuck.
Sudie Crouch is an award
winning humor columnist.
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