Letter of the Day | What is a teacher worth to you?

THE EDITOR, Madam:

My Peace Corps experience was nothing short of a life-changing one. I love to tell the stories, I have so many. But this one in particular has to do with teachers and I tell it here again with thanks to the Jamaican people and to acknowledge a debt I can never repay: Stationed on the edge of what was then called “the bush” or country parts, one weekend I gathered a serious, eventually life-threatening infection in my middle ear.

On a Monday morning, head swollen, losing sight in one eye and in some considerable pain, I went to a local clinic to get an appointment with the doctor there. I sat at the end of a queue of some 15 or 20 women, some with children, waiting ahead of me. When the doctor came in the next patient, a woman at the head of the line, stood and motioned me to come and be next. “Com, tee-cha-mon,” she said. I told her no, I could wait my turn, but she insisted and the other ladies in the line also encouraged me not to wait.

Today, in every community I have lived in here in the US, I have never found such a spirit in the hearts of my American neighbours. Here I would likely be bludgeoned for cutting in line and the doctor sued for malpractice. So, my question today now 50 years and two generations later, is “Why does it always take poverty to realise our priorities?” There were no privileged ladies in that queue – they each granted that favour willingly to someone they all simply believed was a “teacher” because they knew how important a teacher was to the future of their children.

I dare say, if there is such a spirit still living in Jamaica today, they should have no problem finding great teachers, for great teachers work for those ladies and their children, not for themselves; great teachers would still teach if you gave them a bed, food to eat, and a room to teach in ... and are there still great teachers in Jamaica? I dare say there must be a few, and we can thank God for them, even if we can’t ever pay them what they’re really worth.

MORRIS MCKOY

Florida