{"id":6888,"date":"2014-10-25T23:59:09","date_gmt":"2014-10-25T23:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6888"},"modified":"2014-10-25T23:59:09","modified_gmt":"2014-10-25T23:59:09","slug":"public-school-teachers-priceless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6888","title":{"rendered":"Great public school teachers: priceless"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

Shanna Peeples is a former colleague of mine. She used to bleed printer’s ink, writing — quite well, I should add — for the Amarillo Globe-News.<\/p>\n

Shanna gave that career up some years ago to enter another calling, as a public school teacher.<\/p>\n

She teaches English these days at Palo Duro High School in Amarillo and this week received the highest honor a secondary teacher can earn: Secondary Teacher of the Year from the Texas Education Agency.<\/p>\n

Think about this for a moment.<\/p>\n

Texas comprises more than 1,200 independent school districts, and more than 2,000 secondary schools. All told the state employs more than 300,000 teachers in primary and secondary education. They educate 5 million or so children at all levels.<\/p>\n

So, the honor that Shanna earned represents something quite special.<\/p>\n

First, it honors the great work she does for Palo Duro High students. She is dedicated to their well-being and they are devoted to her, most of whom seek to do their very best to make Ms. Peeples proud of them.<\/p>\n

I haven’t had the honor of watching Shanna teach her students. I’ll just accept with gladness and pride in my former colleague that the TEA has honored a great teacher for doing great work in a great school district.<\/p>\n

Indeed, honors such as these should be valued by everyone who cherishes public education. Shanna’s work symbolizes the dedication that great teacher devote to their calling every single day.<\/p>\n

How do you put a value on that dedication? Precisely how do you measure the good that these teachers bring to the students in their care during the school day?<\/p>\n

Good teachers can become role models for the students in their care. Great<\/em> teachers become embedded in students’ memories forever. We all remember the great teachers we’ve had along the way and whatever positive outcomes develop in our lives, it’s a very good bet indeed that\u00a0some of the credit belongs to a teacher who steered us in the right direction when we needed a mid-course correction.<\/p>\n

You cannot put a price on the value that good educators bring to those who are coming along. Shanna Peeples represents the greatness that exists in our public education system.<\/p>\n

From where I stand, the TEA has chosen well and our future is in good hands as long as we keep producing high-quality educators.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shanna Peeples is a former colleague of mine. She used to bleed printer’s ink, writing — quite well, I should add — for the Amarillo Globe-News. Shanna gave that career up some years ago to enter another calling, as a public school teacher. She teaches English these days at Palo Duro High School in Amarillo … Continue reading Great public school teachers: priceless<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,18],"tags":[316,3481,4243,4611],"class_list":["post-6888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-state-news","tag-amarillo-isd","tag-palo-duro-high-school","tag-shanna-peeples","tag-texas-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}