Teachers owe students their best
Editor, Townsman:
We are health professionals who are duty-bound to provide the best service of which we are capable to our patients regardless of our own financial, political and workplace concerns. People whom we serve do not deserve substandard service; they are in need of care and they trust in us to provide that no matter what our situation, dissatisfactions or worries. In fact, like many professionals, in health care in particular and in this economy in general, we work longer hours and see more patients to make the same amount of money that we did in the past, and some years we make even less money for more work. We pay much more for health insurance for our family each year without any compensatory increase in pay.
The report in the Townsman that the vice president of the teachers union actually told the teachers to provide less instruction in the classroom completely dismayed us ("Simplify lessons, says union memo," Jan. 19 Townsman, page 1). Whatever the contract situation, the teachers are supposed to be professionals and, as professionals, they owe it to their students to provide the best that they can give; to do otherwise is unprofessional and unconscionable. This action is destructive to our children and our community.
Ed & Vicki Jacobs
5 Dawn Circle
