I was a teacher for eighteen years. Not a college professor… not even a high school English teacher… "just" an elementary teacher. Over the years I taught third grade, fourth grade, and sixth grade, spent a year as a "resource teacher," (sort of a lifeguard for kids in danger of going under because of learning problems) and ended my career in education by spending four years creating, coordinating, and teaching very advanced programs for "gifted and talented" (i.e., smart and able) students in a district with seven thousand elementary-aged children.

I mention all this as background to the next story.

Teaching is a profession which is not quite a profession. As recently as twenty-five years ago, teachers balanced their low pay with whatever satisfaction they could find in the job and there is plenty for a good teacher and by enjoying a certain indefinable sense of status in the eyes of the community.

Some years ago when I was a sixth grade teacher, I stepped outside one winter evening to see the Colorado skies ablaze with a disturbing light. It was the aurora borealis, of course, in what may well be the most dramatic display I'll ever see from these latitudes.

As I stood watching this incredible light show, a young student of mine and her mother came down the street and asked what was going on. I explained about the aurora.

"Oh," said the mother. "I thought maybe it was the end of the world like it predicts in Revelation, but Jesse said you'd know if it was something else."

I think of that moment occasionally.

It used to be that teachers were if not exactly the sages of society at least respected as minor but necessary intellectual components in the community. Now, when parents go in to a parent/teacher conference, the odds are great that the parents are better educated than the teacher. Even if they're not, they almost certainly make significantly more money than the teacher.