All over the USA, teachers’ hearts have melted into heartbreak once more. Or maybe it’s just mine. It’s hard to say goodbye to students you’ve poured into and loved for over 9 months.

Exhausted, teachers melt into bowls of ice cream and sink into hammocks with a novel. A much needed and hard-earned break is in order.

Maddeningly, most teachers also melt into oblivion to the powerful forces shaping their profession.

Consider, for example, the fleeting hype in Oregon over walking out to “show support for education funding”. Even at the time of the walk outs, most teachers didn’t understand why their union was asking them to do this. Now into summer, many Oregon teachers believe the passage of HB3427 earned them more teachers and lower class sizes.

Which teachers will sacrifice devouring a novel to read what HB3427 says? Will trade unmindfulness for the sake of the students and families they serve? Will realize their union insisted they participate in obliterating(with HB3427) Oregon voters’ own clear decision against taxing gross receipts(Measure 97)?

Which teachers will also read HB2016, sponsored by their union, which invades teachers’ personal privacy? How about HB2192, of the year 2013, which gives clues to the rise of “disrupted learning”?  This legislated stuff isn’t happening just in Oregon, but it is happening at the behest of “teachers” unions.

Everything’s melting. . .except the frozen teacher perception that state and national teachers’ unions are all that and a bag of chips. . .

Rest, recuperate and enjoy your break. . .but don’t melt into oblivion and leave yourself, your students and their parents in government unions’ misguided wake.