Mamacita says:  Education is important in so many ways; it would be impossible to list them all.  No way.  Not possible.  However, I think we can all safely say that the main two components that determine whether or not our children will be properly educated are the children themselves, and the  teachers.

Our children are rewarded daily by being fed, clothed, and generally put up with (just kidding) (sort of)  (okay, not really)  but I’m going to be very frank here:  teachers seldom get any kudos.  Even the most awesomely excellent, hardest-working, kindest, most sincere, intelligent, well-meaning, and most interested teachers in the world seldom get even a pat on the back.  (Mediocre and frankly terrible teachers frequently get awards from administrations that believe silence is golden and non-involvement is wonderful, though.  Don’t get me started.)  What our genuinely good teachers mostly get is flack, criticism, and flat-out abuse, and not just from the hoods and slacker parents, either.  The more a teacher is willing to do, the more he/she is required to do.  Schools know that the good teachers will pretty much lie down in the street for the sake of their students, and for most schools, that’s the next step because they’ve already forced their teachers to do pretty much everything else, including being endangered, humiliated and deprived of their legal rights.  Good teachers care too much about their students to get all balky over most issues.  Administrators know this, and they take full advantage of it.

That being said, I would like to nominate some wonderful educators for some cool Edublog Awards. I’ll be nominating others on posts-yet-to-come, too, but I think I’m making a good start with this one.

I am nominating Steve Spangler’s Blog for two awards:  Best Educational Use of Video/Visual, and Best Resource Sharing Blog.

Now, put down the dust cloth and vacuum cleaner – yeah, yeah, I’ve got PEOPLE coming over tomorrow, too – and put in a vote for this fine blog that does so much to connect teachers and students with the enriching and extremely interesting and gobs of FUN world of science.  Not that boring science that lives in your kid’s textbook; Steve Spangler shows your kids what REAL science is.  You know, the kind that gets down and dirty.  (No, not THAT kind of down and dirty.  Honestly, what kind of people ARE you?)  (I actually know what kind of people most of you are, and I’m fine with that.)  (Seriously, I love you all.)  (Except for, well, you know who you are.)

There is nothing on anybody’s agenda that is more important than our children, and the fine educators who work with them daily deserve something more than another piece of paper in their file officially stating that their blinds were an inch and a quarter too high and that three of their classroom desks had been marked on, and that the teacher has been officially notified to remedy these situations immediately.

Teachers have been sent to the Rubber Room for much less, and I wish I were pulling your leg.

Seriously, I wish I were pulling your leg.  Come a little closer so I can reach it.   (Just kidding; wait, where are you going?)