Why Teachers Are Still Leaving the Profession

[jserraglio]

Why Teachers Are Still Leaving the Profession

Turnover is down from its peak in 2022 but remains higher than normal, new data show

By Matt Barnum
WALL STREET JOURNAL
March 4, 2024 at 7:00 am ET

Schools continue to struggle amid political discord and chronic absenteeism, among other challenges.

Betsy Sumner always knew she wanted to be a teacher. She came from a family of educators and took a class in high school for aspiring teachers. She began teaching straight out of college in 2009 and loved it.

But last summer she left her job teaching family and consumer sciences, the subject previously known as home economics, at a high school in northern Virginia. With four children of her own, juggling the demanding workload was no longer worth it for the pay.

Public-school teachers like Sumner are still leaving the profession in higher numbers than before the pandemic, a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from 10 states show, though departures have fallen since their peak in 2022. The elevated rate is likely due to a combination of factors and adds one more challenge to schools battling learning loss and frequent student absences.

“This is still a discouraging story,” said Katharine Strunk, dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. ”I don’t think this level of consistent attrition is sustainable for the school system.”

National teacher exit data is released only sporadically, and many states don’t produce timely figures. But the Journal obtained information from 10 states, the most comprehensive recent compilation, that shows turnover typically followed a postpandemic pattern: a drop in the summer of 2020, followed by a spike in 2022.

In all 10 states, attrition fell last fall, as the current school year began. But in nine states, turnover still remained higher than in 2019, the last year before the pandemic.

In some places, including Hawaii and South Carolina, the increase in churn was small. But in other states—such as Arkansas, North Carolina and Virginia—teachers were leaving in substantially higher numbers than they were prepandemic. Turnover rates typically refer to the share of teachers no longer teaching in the state’s public schools, although the precise definition varies.

In Virginia, in the years before the pandemic, turnover was consistently lower than 12%. The recent rate was 14.1%, amounting to a loss of nearly 2,500 more teachers. Teacher vacancy rates in the state hit 4.5% this school year, the highest since at least 2015.

Experts and educators say teachers are continuing to leave for a variety of reasons. The average teacher salary—around $66,000—hasn’t risen significantly in decades, adjusted for inflation, as officials have used increased education funding for other purposes. Occupations outside of teaching might be more available and enticing with unemployment rates low and work-from-home policies more common. And some teachers say that student behavior has worsened since the pandemic, making their jobs more challenging.

Limited support from administrators with student behavior pushed Ryan Higgins to leave his job teaching world geography in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 2022. “I was a ninth-grade teacher and my students were seventh-graders emotionally,” he said. “I felt like I didn’t even get to teach.” That year, the most recent with data available, Texas experienced its highest rate of teacher turnover in at least a decade.

Some former teachers cite political battles over issues such as how race and gender are discussed in class and the feeling that the profession has lost respect.

Aimee Heavener, who like Sumner taught high school in Loudoun County, Va., said that was one of the reasons she left teaching in 2022. “I do think that teachers became demonized in some ways and mistrusted,” she said.

[Holden Fourth]

Why Teachers Are Still Leaving the Profession

Turnover is down from its peak in 2022 but remains higher than normal, new data show

By Matt Barnum
WALL STREET JOURNAL
March 4, 2024 at 7:00 am ET

Some former teachers cite political battles over issues such as how race and gender are discussed in class and the feeling that the profession has lost respect.

Aimee Heavener, who like Sumner taught high school in Loudoun County, Va., said that was one of the reasons she left teaching in 2022. “I do think that teachers became demonized in some ways and mistrusted,” she said.

This is the thing that is the most overlooked as far as the profession goes - you don't get affirmation and positive acknowledge from parents or the hierarchy. The job can be (and usually is) physically and emotionally draining yet the brickbats appear well before any bouquets. Why would any sane human being out themselves through that sort of treatment? The psychological affect on their sense of wellbeing alone is enough for teachers to say "I aint doing this any more".

I'm lucky in that I work in the relative sanctuary of the private school system but talking to colleagues who work in the public system the constraints are all too apparent.

[jserraglio]

Bingo! Lack of support from the administration was the main cause of significant turnover in the 1980s at my school.

[Rach3]

A troubling note from NYT today on the marked increase in student absenteeism:

" What is going on here?

I spoke with school leaders, counselors, researchers and parents. They offered many reasons for the absences: illness, mental health, transportation problems. But underlying it all is a fundamental shift in the value that families place on school, and in the culture of education during the pandemic.

“Our relationship with school became optional,” said Katie Rosanbalm, a psychologist and associate research professor at Duke University."

The decline of America ?

[david johnson]

I taught for 40 years. The things that made me shake my head: the school counselors I was around were given too much influence. They will screw you over if they do the student scheduling (unless you are the coach, lol). State departments always jump on a new method that NEVER works.
When in worked in MO, a new instructional idea (to be used with a certain documentation) was introduced by a state ed rep and our curriculum director. I expressed that it wouldn't last and was lectured. It was gone, along with the advocate, the next year.
There is much more to this tale, but it ends with the state dept. music chair showing up and, after review, telling those jerks that WHATEVER I WRITE DOWN IS PROPER AND THEY WILL ACCEPT IT. This was in my presence and the squirming on their part was delectable.
Next is NEA, etc. A groan is appropriate.
I kept at it for years because I enjoyed my music students and did find sensible admin that would often shake their heads at the latest foolishness.
I understand why folks leave the job. I also understand why some will stay. God bless them all.
Now I'll go take a nap, or whatever. Maybe wash the car. I'm retired now

[Belle]

Good on you and I hope you're enjoying your well-earned retirement!

Teachers are abandoning the profession in droves in Australia. Honestly, I wonder what's taken them so long. It was a nightmare when I finished up end 2007. Principals are complaining about being bullied by parents and students. I blame the Teachers' Federation (union) for a lot of this as they did the Neville Chamberlain 'peace in our time' schtick, placating students and it's massively backfired. They reverted to the tropes of victimhood for students so that finally the inmates were running the asylum.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-25/ ... /103142210

In about late 2005 I had a recalcitrant student whom the school would not discipline in order to protect me, so I went to the local police station and asked for them to come to the school because I felt threatened. The cop said "what the hell goes on up there at that school?" and I said, "the Principal is a jellyfish with zero spine - that's why I need you". They came up; kids had their necks hanging out classroom windows to watch! The Principal was in a sweat, "why did you do this?" and I said, "you have a duty of care to protect me and when you're not doing that it's every man for himself"!! My colleagues were somewhat stunned and I got renewed respect from the students and parents!! Until I retired, that Principal would act deferentially to me - because he was worried about my next stunt! I left shortly afterwards.

There were wonderful kids whom I'd have paid the Department to teach, but finally it was the fewer bad ones which drove me away and now this is happening to others. Fortunately we had an agricultural business which was the main source of our income, but my colleagues were trapped. When the Head Teacher used the F word whilst yelling at me in front of a Year 12 student (I hadn't prepared the junior debating team on time!) I submitted my resignation the following day. "You've done this deliberately in the middle of the year", she said, "and the students will be upset". They were so upset that I got cake, cards and gifts!!

It's not just the administrative work; it's the extra jobs you get over and above your ordinary teaching, like the debating team, when you're already snowed under. All because the Head Teacher wants that on her resume when she seeks promotion!!

You need the collegiality of your peers; a safe harbour in that staffroom and people you know you can trust. And colleagues who are flexible and can cover for you, and vice versa, when you need favours. Without this teaching can be an awful profession.

[jserraglio]

War stories. Shoot first, ask questions later —

A dumbass lad at our school once followed a young female teacher into the john and pulled a knife on her. She outran him, he was expelled on the spot and arrested within the hour.

I taught for 50 years and loved it.

The only real conflict I can recall with a guidance counsellor occurred during a meeting with the parents of a 9th grader I had failed. The counsellor peremptorily demanded that I explain a pile of my glowing weekly progress reports. Turns out of course the reports had all been penned by the youngster himself, the only written work the resourceful laddie had accomplished during that school term. I was tempted to change his grade for displaying creativity and gritty ingenuity.

In the only other quasi conflict I can recall with a counsellor (his time about cheating), I concurred with the counselor's assessment that the student had not been at fault, but my reasoning was that, obviously, His Satanic Majesty Himself had put the boy up to it. Needless to say, she, a public school employee on loan to us who was unused to being challenged by a mere classroom teacher, was emphatically not pleased with me.

My many chairs and principals over the years largely left me alone. I designed curricula in three different fields of study that I thought would most benefit students, and determined for myself how I would best get them across. I enjoyed nearly total academic freedom.

[Holden Fourth]

I have taught in both the public and private sectors and know which I prefer. One thing I discovered early in my career was in my first promotion. That was when I discovered the power of passive resistance and it was rightly directed against me. I could do nothing about it as the staff working as part of my department were just paying lip service to 'my' ideas as I had not consulted with them beforehand. It's a lesson that I've never forgotten and I strongly value collegiality as the one thing that we as teachers can stand behind as a united group.

Counsellors don't seem to have the sway here in Australia as they might in the US. They do try to genuinely act as a support service for students with genuine issues (and I'm not including lax parenting in that) and the way that they go about it means that we are happy to support them, especially as we are consulted regularly.

Having operated in all facets of the education game from excited and motivated rookie to school principal there is one thing I have learnt that you must do to maintain your professional sanity. If you don't agree with a parent, make it clear and obvious from the start and whatever pressure that parent might try to bring to bear, stand your ground. It also helps if you've been diligent with the documentation process. It's a process that I've always called DEW (document every word). It's hard to argue when your own words come back to bite you.

I remember an interview with a very feisty parent (fellow teacher at another school who should have known better) who was challenging her daughter's work habit grade for HPE. The student was also at the interview and I asked her for her school diary. I then proceeded to show the parent the number of times I had indicated in that diary that her daughter had not brought along her swimming gear (as she simply didn't want to swim). You can imagine the change in atmosphere as the ire of the parent was transferred from me to the daughter.

We have a process at our school where any interview/incident/etc that might come back to bite you must be officially recorded. It keeps us safe and it's great as a future teacher of a particular student to look back at what has gone on. Yes, it's extra admin but very valuable admin. Don't do it and if a parent comes along with a complaint then you simply don't have a leg to stand on.

Finally, I could have retired ages ago but I really enjoy my job and have stayed on. The College respects that and has actively supported, encouraged even, my continued participation at the school. It also gives me a reason to get up every day.

[Belle]

Great anecdotes, but the paperwork thing (with respect) is OK for a Principal who is not having to do lesson preparations every day, as well as registrations and school reports - nor playground, nor bus duty, nor sport!! (I willingly traded that last for an onerous English Extension 1 and 2 course when the new syllabus arrived.)

I found the paperwork hugely burdensome and refused point blank to keep sending 'notifications' for students in senior school who didn't want to be at school and who had no intention of fulfilling those assessment obligations. Ideally, every faculty should have a team of support people who complete all this admin; god knows there would be enough to keep 2 of them employed full time.

Having done casual teaching in the Catholic system (where our kids were educated) I can say I preferred that infinitely better than the state. There was a kindness there within the staff and students; that, and a phone in every classroom so that you immediately had contact with the front office!! And I'm not talking about mobile phones.

One boy in Year 7 was being mercilessly bullied at our school (by a girl!!) and the parents despaired at the annual interview about the school management doing nothing about it. In the end I said to them, "put him into the Catholic or private system as that's the only opportunity you'll have to really influence things". They took that advice and sent me a beautiful letter afterwards, which I've kept!! As I knew who the offending bully was and as she was in my class year on year I warned her that my 'evil eye' was trained upon her and she'd just better behave. Or else. She never caused me a minute's trouble and years later I ran into her at the shops; she enthusiastically told me what a great teacher I was (??!!) and all about what she was doing.

Not being a career start-to-finish teacher but one who entered the profession after 4 kids and a former gig in television I knew all about bullies and how they operated!! Running a business in a ruthlessly competitive environment also helped me convey to students the value of sheer hard work - and that going to university wasn't the panacea it was cracked up to be. But I did enjoy the company of my colleagues right across the school and liked every single one of them. But one. Being naturally rebellious - especially regarding draconian admin, the fetishization of university admission and myriad silly rules - ultimately enabled me to help my students.

[Lance]

Interesting to read all of this about the teaching profession. My daughter graduated from Babson College/Massachusetts and decided she wanted to be a teacher. It was off to NYU and got her masters. Accepted a job in Brooklyn, NY. I helped her get set up there, furniture placement, etc., and she was there for a few years. Students were terrible. They would throw all her desktop stuff to the floor, talk on their cellphones, scream, yell, show no respect. It became unsafe for her to be there. Stories she told me were unbelievable. She left. Never went back to teaching and it is education's loss because her heart was in the right place from the beginning. No upper leadership. Of course, it's general knowledge that teaching in the NYC area can be considered quite different from teaching in the suburbs; other teachers who have worked in both, and in private, have advised me of this. Sad days for education.

[Belle]

I'm sorry about your daughter, but they just didn't deserve somebody as credentialed and willing as she. I hope she has moved onto something more satisfying and to her liking.

This article appeared today in our national newspaper, "The Australian", and it's written by a former PM of this country. He was a candidate for the priesthood in his youth and later a Rhodes Scholar. My father's sister knows the Abbott family very well. Mr. Abbott talks about the late Cardinal George Pell who was found not-guilty on appeal (unanimously) by the courts after a conviction of child sexual abuse and having served approx. 18 months (or more) in jail. The Left found him guilty even before the courts ever heard the initial case!!

The Left despised Tony Abbott and I think you can see why!! He's a good man who does a great deal of voluntary work for his community and he's also spent a lot of time in remote indigenous communities working with those people.

What’s lacking from today’s schooling? Any grounding in the New Testament
Tony Abbott

Years ago, I was still playing rugby football, in Oxford, England, and there were lineout calls, requiring the recognition of particular letters. If the captain called a word starting with the letter “t”, the ball went to the back. If he called a word starting with “s”, it went to the front. But on this occasion, the captain called “Tchaikovsky”. The resulting chaos among the students of a great university highlighted the need for a well-rounded classical education, even for those who took their sport as seriously as their studies.

What’s mostly lacking from today’s schooling is any grounding in the New Testament, even though it’s at the heart of our culture. There’s an absence of narrative history: our story from Abraham, Jacob, and Moses, our fathers in faith, through the ancient Greeks and Romans, to Alfred the Great, Magna Carta, the Provisions of Oxford, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Glorious Revolution, an American Revolution for the rights of Englishmen in the New World and a French one based on worthy abstractions that ultimately descended into tyranny, and through the struggles of the 20th century to our own times with the illusory ascendancy of market liberalism because man does not live by bread alone. There is, of course, an abundance of critical theory that’s turned great literature and the triumphs of the human spirit into a fantasy of oppressors and oppressed and regards the modern Anglosphere as irredeemably tainted.

Above all, contemporary schooling hardly conveys a spirit of progress, even though there’s still much to be grateful for. In 1990, for instance, more than 30 per cent of the world’s population lacked access to safe drinking water; by 2020, that figure was under 10 per cent. Likewise, in 1990, more than 30 per cent of the world’s population lived in absolute poverty; that too, had declined to under 10 per cent by 2020. And in 2020, more wealth had been created, at least in dollar terms, over the previous 25 years than in the prior 2500.

Prior to the pandemic, the world at large was more free, more fair, more safe, and more rich, for more people than at any previous time in human history, largely thanks to the long Pax Americana, based on a preference for whatever makes societies freer, fairer and more prosperous under a rules-based global order. But while the Western world has never been more materially rich, it’s rarely been more spiritually bereft. Relieved of the need to build its strength and assert its values against the old Soviet Union, like a retired sportsman it has become economically, militarily and culturally flabby.

The pandemic was a largely self-inflicted wound, with the policies to deal with it more destructive than the disease itself. For years, we will face the corrosive legacy of mental illness, other diseases that were comparatively neglected, economic dislocation, the surrender to authoritarian experts; and worst of all, two years of stopping living from fear of dying.

And now there’s the ferocious assault on Ukraine; the renewed challenge of apocalyptic Islamism, especially against Israel; and Beijing’s push to be the world’s dominant power by mid-century, with all that means for free and democratic Taiwan, for the rest of East Asia and for the continued flourishing of the liberal order that has produced the best times in history so far.

In the face of an intensifying military challenge from dictatorships on the march, militarist, Islamist and communist, it might seem trivial, almost escapist, to stress the life of the mind but, in the end, this is a battle of ideas: the power of the liberal humanist dream of men and women, created with inherently equal rights and responsibilities, free to make the most of themselves, individually and in community; versus various forms of might is right, based on national glory, death to the infidel, or the dictatorship of the proletariat.

In most Western countries, people’s faith in democracy is shrinking. Mental illness, especially among young people, is a new epidemic. And while this may or may not be related to the waning of the Christian belief in the God-given dignity and worth of each person, which incubated liberal democracy, and that armoured its adherents against pride and despair, it’s noteworthy that the Christianity that was professed by some 90 per cent of Australians just a few decades back is now acknowledged in the Census by well under half.

Politics, it’s often said, is downstream of culture, and culture is downstream of religion. It’s the coarsening of our culture, exacerbated by “the long march through the institutions”, that’s at least partly to blame for the feeble or embarrassing leadership from which we now suffer, and for the triumph of prudence over courage, and weakness over judgment, that has produced virtue-signalling businesses, propaganda pretending to be learning, the elevation of every kind of diversity except intellectual diversity, eruptions of anti-Semitism, out-of-control social spending and a drug culture in parts of Western cities that can only be the product of moral anarchy.

In the long run, the antidote to this is to rediscover all that’s given meaning to most people in every previous generation: a knowledge of our history, an appreciation of our literature, and an acquaintance with the faith stories that might not inspire every individual but have collectively moved mountains over millennia.

I was lucky enough to be schooled under Brigidine nuns, and then under Jesuit priests, and the lay teachers who took inspiration from them: fine, selfless people, who saw teaching as a calling more than a career, encouraging their charges at every turn to be their best selves. Their lives were about our fulfilment, not theirs, as reflected in the Jesuit injunction of those days to be “a man for others”, because it’s only in giving that we truly receive.

Later, at Sydney University, and especially at Oxford, I had teachers who valued their students’ ability to assimilate the authorities and to create strong arguments for a distinctive position, rather that regurgitate lecture notes and conform to some orthodoxy. Indeed, this is the genius of Western civilisation: a respect for the best of what is, combined with a restless curiosity for more; a constant willingness to learn, because no one has the last word in knowledge and wisdom. The whole point of a good education is not to “unlearn”, as Sydney University has recently put it, but to assimilate all the disciplines, intellectual and personal, that make us truly free “to have life and have it to the full”.

The Oxford tutorial system, where twice a week you had to front up to someone who was a genuine expert in his field, with an essay demonstrating familiarity with the main texts and the main arguments on a particular topic, plus a considered position of your own, was the perfect preparation for any form of advocacy, especially politics, where you always have to be ready to apply good values to hard facts.

These days, as a board member of the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, I’m conscious of the many elements of the Western canon that I’ve largely missed, in over-focusing on politics, with only a smattering of philosophy and theology, from a brief pursuit of the priesthood; but am still immensely grateful for an intellectual, cultural and spiritual inheritance that I’ve now been drawing down over 40 years of advocacy, journalism, and public life. I have few claims to specific expertise, save in political decision-making, and certainly no claims to personal virtue because an inevitably imperfectly and incompletely practised Christianity doesn’t guarantee goodness – but it does make us better than we’d otherwise be, this constant spur to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.

Still, example and experience are often the best teachers of all. A mother who welcomed everyone into our family home. A late father who urged me to look for the good that’s present in almost everyone. An inspirational teacher, the late Father Emmet Costello, who encouraged me to set no limits on what could be achieved. A boon friend, the late Father Paul Mankowski, my Oxford sparring partner, a kind of internal exile within the Jesuit order, who showed that a celibate priest could also be a real man. And the luminous George Cardinal Pell, of blessed memory, who endured a modern martyrdom, a form of living crucifixion, and whose prison diaries deserve to become modern classics. One day, I hope again to enjoy the communion of these saints.

I was lucky to have a reasonably broad experience beyond the classroom and beyond the confines of political life. Coaching football teams was an early introduction into managing egos. Running a concrete batching plant was a great antidote to pure economic theory, and to corporate flim-flam, and a goad to unconventional problem solving. Plus serving in a local volunteer fire brigade for more than two decades has been a wonderful lesson in grassroots community service.

My Jesuit mentor, Father Costello, had a favourite phrase – “genus humanum vivit paucis” – which he translated as “the human race lives by a few”.

Of course, there’s no discredit to being among the many who largely follow, because no one can lead unless others fall in behind. And whatever our individual role, large or small, public or private, sung or unsung, our calling is to be as good as we can be, because even small things, done well or badly, make a difference for better or for worse. Everyone’s duty, indeed, is to strive to leave the world that much better for our time here: our families, our neighbourhoods, our workplaces, our classrooms, our churches, everything we do should be for the better, as best we can make it.

Still, some are called to more; more than worthily performing all the things that are expected of us. Leaders are those who go beyond what might be expected; who don’t just fill the job, but expand it, even transcend it; who aren’t just competent but brilliant. To paraphrase the younger Kennedy, they don’t look at what is and ask why; but ponder what should be, and try to make that happen.

In my time as prime minister there were decisions to be made every day, expected and unexpected. Ultimately, the job of a national leader is to try to make sense of all the most difficult issues, and to offer people a better way forward. Inevitably, there’s much that can only be managed, not resolved, because much is more-or-less intractable, at least in the short term. The challenge is to keep pushing in the right direction so that things are better, even though they may never be perfect or even especially satisfactory. No matter how many changes you make, and how much leadership you try to provide, economic reform, for instance, or Indigenous wellbeing, is always going to be a work in progress. There’s no doubt leadership can be more or less effective depending on the character, conviction, and courage of the leader. This is the human factor in history that’s so often decisive, such as when the British Conservative Party chose Winston Churchill rather than Lord Halifax to invigorate the war effort against Nazism. In the end, leadership is less about being right or wrong than about being able to make decisions and get things done.

In providing leadership, what matters is the judgment and the set of values brought to decision-making, at least as much as technical knowledge. The same set of facts, for instance, namely the surrender of France and the evacuation from Dunkirk, would have produced different leadership from Halifax than from Churchill. It would hardly be fair to claim that Churchill’s education at Sandhurst was better than Halifax’s at Oxford. It was their character, disposition and judgment that differed. Just as the respective characters and judgment of presidents Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky so sharply differed when one offered an expedient escape from Kyiv, and the other resolutely refused it.

Still, there’s no doubt that education can help to shape character, and that judgment can be enhanced by the knowledge of history and the appreciation of the human condition that a good education should provide.

I’m sometimes asked by young people with an interest in politics what they should do to be more effective, and my answer is never to join a faction, to consult polling, or to seek any particular office. It’s to immerse yourself in the best that’s been thought and said, so that whatever you do will be better for familiarity with the wisdom of the ages.

In particular to read and re-read the New Testament, the foundation document of our culture, that’s shaped our moral and mental universe, in ways we can hardly begin to grasp, and which speaks to the best instincts of human nature.

And to bury yourself in history, especially a history that’s alive to the difference individuals make, and to the importance of ideas, of which a riveting example is Churchill’s magnificent four-volume History of the English-Speaking Peoples, that’s also pretty much a global history, given that so much of the modern world has been made in English. And which Andrew Roberts has brought more or less up to date with his History of the English-Speaking Peoples in the 20th century.

Then there’s the book – I don’t claim it’s the finest ever written – just the one that’s most colonised my own imaginings: Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings; an epic adventure in duty and service, with Christological echoes, in which the dividing line between good and evil, wisdom and folly, honour and indulgence runs through nearly every heart, which I must have read at least a half dozen times, most recently to my adolescent children. Who naturally, preferred the movie!

There’s a scene in the 1970 western Chisum, where John Wayne’s character is trying to dissuade Billy the Kid from wanton murder. “That’s all just words,” says the young hothead. “Yes,” replies Wayne, “but words are what men live by. Words that they say and mean.” Those were the days when Hollywood still aspired to be a good moral teacher.

And as for movies, my favourites have been Saving Private Ryan and the Australian classic Gallipoli, whose protagonists were pitched into vast conflicts way beyond their control, while retaining the agency to make a difference, especially by not living in fear of dying. And by remembering that to whom much is given, much is expected. Plus the wonderful Life of Brian, that so presciently satirised today’s decolonising and gender follies that it could now hardly be made, yet it still managed to respect the greatest story ever told. Imagine, for a moment, having to tackle every aspect of life with only your own physical and mental resources. Or with only the learning and the capability of those around you. Even with abundant goodwill, life would be a Hobbesian ordeal: poor, nasty, brutish and short.

With education, though, there’s access to the accumulated wisdom of mankind. Our task is to have the wit and the decency to make the most of it. At its best, education gives us access not just to this generation’s wisdom and knowledge but to all the wisdom and knowledge that’s ever been. It adds to our own experience and judgment the experience and judgment of the greatest figures and the best thinkers that have ever lived. It makes their world ours too.

It’s education that opens up to each of us the wisdom of Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas, the insights into human behaviour of Shakespeare and Dickens, the creative imagination of Da Vinci and Michelangelo, the soulfulness of Handel and Bach, the scientific genius of Newton and Einstein, the daring and curiosity of James Cook and Marco Polo, and the courage and ambition of Julius Caesar and Napoleon. It gives us the world’s example to reflect upon. It enables us to be so much better than would otherwise be the case, in the ceaseless endeavour that should be the object of every life, to become our very best selves.

There’s hardly a heavier responsibility than the right nurturing of young people through a judicious combination of good teaching, good example and good practice. Every teacher should reflect on the gospel warning against anything that might lead young people astray, “better for him that a millstone were hanged around his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea”; ancient hyperbole perhaps, but that’s how much the work of teachers matters.

When screens are demanding every minute of young people’s attention, your job is to refocus their gaze. When the saturation of social media preys on young people’s insecurities, it’s up to you to ground them back in reality. When your students are tempted to see themselves as victims, yours is to encourage them to count what blessings they have, and still make the best choices that they can. When today’s story tellers say our history is more marred by villains than illuminated by heroes, it’s up to you to pass on the torch of culture, for without a vision the people perish. Your work is more important than ever, because each of us is shaped by all our lessons learned. Churchill’s teachers changed the world in ways they could hardly have guessed at the time, and likewise the teachers of today can tilt the world of tomorrow towards good.

Consider the immortal words of the late Queen Elizabeth, on her 21st birthday, that “my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong”. No one should be in ignorance of such a life, such an exemplar of the duty and service, the honour and the fealty, by which all should live; yet but for the faithful passing on of such lessons, what will future generations know of our mighty forebears, how they lived and how they died: for family, for country, and for God.

This is an address delivered by former prime minister Tony Abbott to the National Symposium for Classical Education in Phoenix, Arizona last week.

[jserraglio]

Public school teachers complain a lot and are fully justified in doing so, based on conversations with teacher friends who regale me with their war stories and on my own observations inside public schools; however, they are relatively well paid for their trouble and earn substantial pensions.

For my part, I decided to take less compensation teaching in a Catholic independent school in return for being empowered to practice my profession without a clueless bureaucracy breathing down my neck. There was no bureaucracy to speak of at my school; administrators, even the principal were expected to teach at least one class.

I once had an elite, highly talented teacher at a good public high school tell me he would never dare to assign the novels I routinely put on my syllabus for fear of reprisal.

Academic freedom doesn’t come cheap.

[Lance]

WOW! What an extraordinary reading of Tony Abbott's comments ... thought-provoking, wake-up calls, stunning writing and communicative style. Truths therein in abundance. Thank you for that one!

[Holden Fourth]

This is what resonated with me

Later, at Sydney University, and especially at Oxford, I had teachers who valued their students’ ability to assimilate the authorities and to create strong arguments for a distinctive position, rather that regurgitate lecture notes and conform to some orthodoxy. Indeed, this is the genius of Western civilisation: a respect for the best of what is, combined with a restless curiosity for more; a constant willingness to learn, because no one has the last word in knowledge and wisdom. The whole point of a good education is not to “unlearn”, as Sydney University has recently put it, but to assimilate all the disciplines, intellectual and personal, that make us truly free “to have life and have it to the full”.The Oxford tutorial system, where twice a week you had to front up to someone who was a genuine expert in his field, with an essay demonstrating familiarity with the main texts and the main arguments on a particular topic, plus a considered position of your own, was the perfect preparation for any form of advocacy, especially politics, where you always have to be ready to apply good values to hard facts.

[Belle]

Yes, Holden, but these students cannot be controlled!!

[Holden Fourth]

Yes, Holden, but these students cannot be controlled!!

Understood fully, I mean, which sane government wants a highly educated, thinking population? This would mean that the Covid fraud could never be perpetuated again!

[Belle]

Yes, exactly.

I'm wondering how your new knees are going?

[Holden Fourth]

Yes, exactly.

I'm wondering how your new knees are going?

Exceptionally well thank you. I was up and mobile the day after the operation and permanently shed the crutches the day I got home. The physio staff were frankly astonished at my progress (and said so to me) and looking around at my fellow 'invalids' during my twice weekly outpatient rehab sessions I can see how far ahead of them that I am. Pre operation preparation (especially building my quads) and the fact that I seem to heal very quickly has no doubt helped.

The bottom line is that it's wonderful to walk normally again and I didn't realise the insidious effect that not being fully functional has had on my subconcious mind. Now it's like a weight has been lifted from ny shoulders. I go back to work on April 15 and am really looking forward to it.

[Belle]

Congratulations and very well done. You're a new man, by the sound of it. We have to be so thankful for modern medicine. And, of course, you live in god's country; Queensland!

My spouse was the same; he worked on his quads via the exercise bike beforehand, but he's always been very physically active as well. I was beside his hospital bed 2 days after the operation, running him through his exercises when the physio walked in and said, "well, this is very good"!!

I am supposed to have this operation myself but must shed weight first. My late uncle was a doctor and he always told us, "the buck stops with the surgeon". There's a lot of truth to this. If you've got a good one you're half way there.

One caution: I have to sound the warning if the spouse overdoes things. We couldn't get a landscaper with our new home and he ended up putting all the gardens in by himself. I had to stop him digging clay with a shovel because of the obvious pressure on his prosthetic knees. We've (I've) found an alternative methodology for the trees we need for the backyard; buy small tube stock so that you only have to make a very small hole for them. The spouse complained, "we'll never live to see them grow". We won't live to see our grand-daughter grow either, so why worry about it?

Those new knees will serve you well as long as you don't take them for granted!

[Rach3]

From AxiosAM today:

"1 big thing: Teachers' shooting fears

Adapted from a Pew Research Center report.

Nearly a quarter of K-12 teachers experienced a gun-related school lockdown last year, while 18% are "very" or "extremely" worried about a shooting at their school, Jennifer reports from a new Pew Research Center survey.

Why it matters: There's a massive teacher shortage, with many factors contributing to high turnover, including low pay, culture wars and fears about physical safety.

Driving the news: Pew's poll, released yesterday, paints a somber picture of the atmosphere inside American schools.

8% of the 2,531 teachers polled said they'd been in more than one gun-related lockdown last year.

39% said their school had done a fair or poor job of giving them the training and resources they need to deal with an active shooter.

49% would welcome having police officers or armed guards in their school as a preventative measure.

Zoom in: Among the teachers who said they'd recently been in lockdown, the largest percentage taught high school (34%) and in urban areas (31%).

Among all teachers, 69% said the best way to prevent school shootings would be to improve mental health screening and treatment.

33% favor metal detectors in schools, while 13% want teachers and administrators to be able to carry guns.

The latest: The parents of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley, who killed four people, were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison Tuesday for involuntary manslaughter.They're the first parents in the U.S. to be held criminally responsible for their child's mass shooting.

The big picture: The number of school shootings broke records in 2021, 2022 and 2023 — and this year is on pace to set another record, per CNN.

"There were at least 82 incidents in 2023, but 2022 was one of the deadliest years, with 46 fatalities," according to CNN's analysis.

2022 was the year of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which killed 21 students and teachers.

Between the lines: Teachers aren't the only ones who are terrified.

A majority of students and their parents also live in fear of a shooting at their school, an earlier Pew survey found.Those fears have been linked to a rise in anxiety and depression in kids.

Follow the money: There's a gold rush to sell security equipment to schools, with vendors tripping over one another to win contracts.

"I have principals and school security directors tell me they're so bombarded with pitches and overwhelmed with the noise, they don't know who to listen to," Kenneth Trump, a school safety expert and consultant, tells Axios.

The latest approach involves building "layers of security" — everything from AI weapons detection to bullet-resistant glass coatings to panic buttons that teachers wear around their necks.

"Parents all want shiny objects," said Trump (no relation to the former president).

The bottom line: It's been 25 years since Columbine (13 murdered), more than 11 years since Sandy Hook (26 murdered), and six years since Marjory Stoneman Douglas (17 murdered), with no clear solution in reach."