hey, Teach!

Teacher, the vocation to teach children, young people, and young adults, is the highest calling in human life and it's come to crisis that so many teachers are quitting the classroom. Teachers' low pay is a shame of our civilization, but that doesn't seem to be the main reason so many teachers are leaving. It has to do with all sorts of issues, including attitude, respect, attention, commitment and interest, and all manner of things that flowed out of the covid upset. I pray there will be a way back, but I'm only optimistic for schools such as our own Holy Nativity where there is enthusiasm, love, respect, participation and support as well at home as on campus. 

"The Conversation" is one of the regulars into my email inbox, scroll down, their Lead Story one morning recently is more focused on what's happening in the journalism field, but it includes teachers and other vocations that serve people and the community. 

I think that's what I'll have to say this morning. A friend of more than half a century, may be my last surviving Navy colleague, is driving over from Alabama for lunch and a driving visit. Not sure where we'll go, not likely wade into the summer throngs at PCB, but likely beyond St Andrews, maybe the other side of town. Haven't got together in several years, and we always have a lot to talk about!

Pax et al

RSF&PTL

T88&c  

 

Lead story

The first half of 2024 has been brutal for the journalism industry, with thousands of layoffs at newspapers and media outlets around the U.S.

Matthew Powers, a communication scholar at the University of Washington, explains how journalism’s plight is representative of broader challenges facing professions dedicated to societal good, such as nursing, teaching, social work and caregiving. These roles – pillars of community cohesion and an informed democracy – are what sociologist Max Weber called “vocations,” where the work involved is connected to values like healing people, fighting injustice and imparting knowledge.

Yes, the pay might not be great. But for decades, it was enough to get by. Not so anymore. On top of that, many teachers, journalists, social workers and nurses have to contend with administrative burdens and smaller budgets.

Yet, despite stagnant wages and diminishing job security, people still want these jobs. To Powers, the fact that so many workers still sign up for these careers, only to become disillusioned, is “a reflection of a society unable to satisfy its citizens’ basic desires for finding meaning through the work they do.”