A Short Story

Last night I met two Chinese-speaking parents of a shy but happy girl. I told them, after all these weeks, that I've started to see their daughter smile much more frequently. I told them, as I often tell parents, that if their daughter would speak a little more I'd give her a higher grade. They were happy to hear it, but they said their daughter was very shy, even in Chinese.

I was very impressed with Dad, who insisted on speaking English with me, and declined my offers of a translator. I kept telling them about how their daughter seemed to be coming out of her shyness, little by little, and how much her smile meant to me.

The father said something like, "She likes you very much. I will tell her you like her very much too."

There was something great about this. Moments like these make me happy to have this job.

All the reformies in the world can't see or change the real rewards of this job. They place us into ridiculous teams to solve problems we don't have. They make us pore over data to try to improve test scores. But we're not about test scores. We're about children.

For this we are vilified and scorned. For this they attack our tenure and want us at-will employees. For this they attack our unions and try to make them utterly impotent. For this we are judged by nonsense and subject to dismissal for no reason.

There's something horribly wrong with this country.