Kids need to be accountable to caring parents who send well disciplined children to school. These human values are essential in a democracy-anything that threatens them makes our whole society a little less free, our nation a little less strong. These values can be neither created nor preserved without continuous effort and that effort must come from more than teachers who have students only six hours of the day. Despite the problems, public school teachers laugh often and much. They have the respect of intelligent people and the affection of students who care.
Teachers strive to find the best in their students, even where some see little hope.
No other American bestows a finer gift than teaching-reaching out to the brilliant and the retarded, the gifted and the average. Teachers leave the world a little bit better than they found it, knowing if they have redeemed just one life, they have done God's work. They are America's unsung heroes.