What profession do you admire most and why?

Teachers.

Teachers do so much for the world, and yet they often don’t get the respect or support they deserve.

While parents are working to earn a living and “chase the carrot” of promised success, teachers are tasked with preparing the next generation for the future.

More often than not, teachers (and coaches or musical instructors, as some teachers wear multiple hats) will spend more time with a child than their own parents, which leads some parents treating them like glorified babysitters. If we look at it from that angle, teachers are massively underpaid, especially when they have to deal with unruly children who think it’s okay to tell their parents that a teacher was being mean and causing the parents to angrily confront a teacher because they believe their child can do no wrong. (Okay, that probably doesn’t happen TOO often, but it happens often enough that it’s a problem.)

Teachers have to go through a lot of work just to get started, and once they’re working, their job doesn’t end when the bell rings at 3:00PM (that’s when school typically ended for the day when I was growing up in Colorado) because they have to make sure they’re ready for the next day. They grade papers and do lesson planning. They work long hours. If they’re coaching on top of that then they sometimes work late into the night. All so that they can try to educate the next generation and prepare them to the best of their abilities for what is to come.