This week, we've read poetry and articles that highlight some struggles facing educators and their students, particularly in K-12 public education in America. Please respond to one or more of the following questions for your posting this week (you do not need to respond to all of these questions):

• Think back to your time in K-12 education. Did you have experiences with overcrowded classrooms, outdated or missing materials, or other gaps in resources? Are we asking too much of our public school teachers, or are they expecting too much from their positions? Why do teachers, perhaps like the teacher in the poem “Teaching English from an Old Composition Book” by Gary Soto (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42999/teaching-english-from-an-old-composition-book)keep teaching despite the low pay and lack of support?
• Think about the speaker's experience as a student in "Theme for English B" by Langston Hughes (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47880/theme-for-english-b) and the experiences of the homeless students in “Shelters, cars and crowded rooms: Housing crisis forces more students into homelessness” by Carolyn Jones and Daniel J. Willis (https://edsource.org/2017/homeless-students/588020). How can we better prepare teachers for working with students facing a variety of difficulties and hardships in the lives, including discrimination, poverty, homelessness, and abuse? Should it be up to teachers to intervene in students' lives when they suspect problems, or should public schools look to additional support via social workers and counselors?
• Given the increasing level of public awareness around the problems facing K-12 education today, how can we continue to encourage good candidates to pursue teaching as a profession? If you are thinking about going into education, what gives you hope? If you USED to think about going into education, but have changed your mind, what caused that change?