It is Saturday and such a typical day for March. Maybe mid or late-March, but of course the reality is that we're merely in the first week of February! "Punxsutawney Phil" must have been amazed. I have no excuse not to be walking to town now and then. Perhaps aging changes my attitude, so last night I took car and stopped at our library.
The library has appeared to recover from the challenged covid period. I find myself thinking "when did they start hiring kids to work here?" That is a thought offered in a spirit of levity, a variation on the established line "when did they start hiring kids to be policemen?" The gag of course is that we are all getting older! We need to remind ourselves.
So I remind myself as I put reading glasses on. And what do I peruse at the library? The Morris paper for one thing. So on Friday I made a check of this mere 16-page product. It's getting harder to remember that the product was much bigger over most of its history. It was twice weekly and commonly had 20 pages or more. That's for a single issue. Not suggesting that arrangement was necessarily better for us, because today in the digital age we are served so much better, resources far beyond the local paper.
I look at the Morris paper with no eagerness to feel perturbed by anything. What do I take away from this week? Well, I glance at the front page of what's called the "Stevens County Times" and see an immense piece of fluff, absolutely sugary fluff, for the Hancock school music program. I don't care if the article is based on communications received, or that the school wants to trumpet this (so to speak), it's still sugary empty-calorie fluff, the effect of which ought to be some annoyance for the Morris school stakeholders, like me.
Doesn't Morris have a music program that is commensurate? Would you care to argue to the contrary?
The paper's staff would have a rejoinder. The praise is not being bestowed by the paper itself, or whatever.
Maybe it's fine for this reporting to be done on a more low-key basis, lodged further into the coverage of a school board meeting or whatever it was. I don't take notes. I'm not going out of my way to evaluate these things. But I know "puffery" when I see it.
And then my mood was worsened, unfortunately, as I turned the page. So on page 2 we all get deluged once again by complaining from the teaching staff. I'm old enough to remember when public school teachers all over the state either went on strike or were threatening to do so. It was incredibly disruptive and demoralizing for everyone. The system had to get modified so I think it did. We hardly hear of teacher strikes now.
And of course we all want to appreciate our teachers and to see they are able to lead a comfortable middle class life. Maybe middle class isn't good enough for them? Well then I would demur.
First we heard complaining from someone last name of Messner a few weeks ago. That volley I guess wasn't good enough, so now we get another dose in our faces. Here's a huge article in the Morris or Morris-Hancock paper that shovels out more of same, maybe with more fierceness.
So why did all these teachers agree to work here if they were going to get screwed so bad? And why is it that when a teacher takes leave as Trent Oberg did, they seem to always want to come back? Why come back if it's such a raw deal? Aren't the benefits of the job quite enticing? Many people who survive in the world outside do not even have the benefit of being with a union. They have to show their value in a very direct way all the time.
Another point to be made: why are teachers even allowed this platform of bitching to the school board in board meetings where the media is going to be paying attention, and in the paper's case to write a super-big headline for pages 1 or 2? Are the teachers doing this knowing they'll get so much attention? My suggestion would be for such arguments to be made in closed sessions classified as "personnel matters" or "negotiations." Forget this open posturing to the public. This grandstanding.
I have an even bigger worry to cite as the fallout from this: given the teachers' dissatisfaction with their jobs, or how they're rewarded, might we expect a drop-off in morale, or bitterness. I didn't come into town on a turnip truck, so I have seen this happen before. It was an epidemic in the 1980s: rampant cynicism and bitterness. We had to worry about teachers actually "taking it out on the kids" although they'd vociferously deny that. But it was true.
Teachers had too much power. They could pick on a kid if that kid's parents were reputed to differ with the teachers' position on things. Teachers would deny that. Would you expect them to admit it? The late Dave Holman said of this suspicion once: "They (the teachers) say they don't do that but they do."
We want our public school teachers to love their profession and to be idealistic. Now I wish they'd just shut up a little. Stop using the newspaper to get in our faces.
And shouldn't the people running the paper be smart enough to realize this Hancock music thing is going to grate on the Morris school parents? We're all ready to acknowledge that Hancock probably does just fine, is exemplary in music. But isn't this just a case where the music educators are "doing their jobs?" Just like the educators in Morris? Why don't we all just sit back and let this all roll on, without the sugar-high testimonials.
And the teachers are not likely to be satisfied anyway, as they'll just piss and moan about needing more money from all of us. Shut the f--k up.
Oh, and look at the "sports section" of the paper, so bloated, much of it so non-timely. All these long articles that no one reads. Only there as a sop for some very narrow constituencies. And that's part of what you are paying for. Sports reporting should be online where the people who deliver it can be as generous as they want, congratulations. And it should be on websites that are free-access for all. It's PR for the school.
So the school can sell itself and the teachers can get more infatuated with their own importance. So as, to get more money. Because it's all about money, right?
Addendum: What are the odds that I can type "Punxsutawney Phil" right without looking it up? Well, zero.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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