I have never looked forward to our TEACH conference as much as I have this year. That’s because of you—the educators in this room and the educators of this nation. It’s been a tough year; I don’t know if it has ever been more challenging. Yet you make a difference in your students’ lives, no matter what. You build your students’ confidence to think independently and with creativity. You help each student realize their unique potential. You create community—in our classrooms, our schools, our neighborhoods. You are our nation’s future-makers.
And you do all this as you deal with everything from budget cuts to culture wars—with class sizes that are too high and salaries that are too low, amid so much divisiveness. You have done this while officials, whose job it is to support teaching and learning, make your jobs harder.
Even our ability to make our classrooms welcoming spaces has gotten harder. I think about the teacher in Idaho who was ordered to remove a sign she had in her classroom for years: “Everyone is welcome here.” She was told by her administration, this year, that this was a political opinion, not a sacrosanct responsibility. Can you imagine that reassuring children that they are in a safe, welcoming space is now an act of insubordination?