Congress, learn from us teachers

By Symon Sanborn

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As we begin a new school year and end a summer full of political gridlock, I can't help but compare some of the two.

As a teacher, I think of all of the wonderful people I work with and how we all have one goal: the education of the children put into our care.

Congress is elected to do a similar job - what is the country's best interest. Teachers are also a lot like Congress because we are a large group of people from many different socioeconomic, rural-urban and academic backgrounds with many diverse views on the world. As teachers, we are trying to facilitate the gaining of knowledge, social interaction with their peers, balancing homework, sports, etc., for all of our students.

Some in Congress believe that holding to certain ways of thinking and being inflexible is the only way to make the changes they deem worth fixing. It seems to not be enough to have changed the dialogue in Washington; they refuse to understand or even adjust some of their views, and it's made everything extremely unproductive. With Congress's approval in the teens, they should listen to their employers - you and me - and make some compromises.

What would happen if, as a school, we were never able to come together on how to best educate our students? If I ideologically feel there is a certain way to do something and refuse to compromise on this, others may think I have guts to stick to something, but the children I serve would suffer. Also, no one would want to work with me to find solutions together.

I feel that this attitude is why Americans are so exasperated with Washington right now. Most of us work together every day to get things done. We teach our students to work in groups, to explore, and to find ways to answer questions and solve problems. Would you want the educator of your children to be someone who held to one belief and anything that came into contact with that belief to be shot down?

I'm a teacher because I find joy in helping young people grow, discover who they are, and to give back to my community. If I wasn't willing to work with my team to try to educate students, I wouldn't enjoy my job, we wouldn't get much done, and our students would suffer for my intolerance.

Americans are suffering right now because people in Washington are working at what is best for them and their party. Let us inform our leaders that we want them to work together for the common good, put their egos away, and look at the best strategies to solve our problems. Then someday they can earn an A instead of the D-minus they're at today.

Symon Sanborn of Cedar Rapids teaches special education for Linn-Mar schools. Comments: symon

.sanborn@gmail.com