Editorial

June 25 2025

The ones who got us here

They are there at the beginning. Sometimes, at the end. Most days, they are everywhere in between. But still – somehow – we often undervalue, underpay and overburden our educators. We expect more than is fair and give back less than is decent. We often treat the very people who shape the minds that will shape our future as though they are the afterthoughts of public life.

Why?

In Nova Scotia and elsewhere in Canada the education system can be a proxy battlefield for every civic anxiety we carry – money, politics, curriculum, culture. And, in rural places like ours, where lives are lived close to the land, the sea, the seasons and one another, the role of the teacher is not just essential – it’s elemental.

They are not just educators. They are coaches, youth mentors, counsellors, first responders and lifelines. They walk the same roads, see the same neighbours, and stay after class because a child needs a warm coat or a safe place to talk. They do this work without fanfare, without complaint, and without any guarantee of respect in return.

If you’ve forgotten, remember the math teacher who stuck with you from the beginning. The one who convinced you that, yes, you were smart, and yes, you could solve a quadratic equation with the best of them. Or the geography teacher who showed you that the river behind your house was carved by glaciers, and that you live on a ridge once travelled by mastodons and sabre-toothed cats.

These are the voices that shape how we see the world. They are the stewards of knowledge and the defenders of wonder. That isn’t sentiment – it’s fact. Every child in every rural community carries the imprint of the men and women who taught them how to read, how to listen, how to question, and how to believe in themselves.

Teachers are not infallible. But neither are doctors, police officers or cabinet ministers – and no one suggests we lower our regard for those professions because they, too, are human.

And yet, when it comes to teachers, we sometimes allow suspicion to creep in through the cracks of our own frustration. We forget that teachers hold more than test scores in their hands. They hold trajectories. Possibilities. The long, unseen arc of lives yet to be lived.

And now, here we are at the end of another school year. Graduation day is this week for students across Nova Scotia. In Guysborough. In Antigonish. In every small gym and rural school auditorium, young people will cross a stage. They’ll shake hands. They’ll clutch diplomas. They’ll look out at a future they cannot fully apprehend. And behind each one will be the face of a teacher who helped get them there.

So yes – go ahead and argue the policy. Examine the systems. But let’s not pretend we don’t know what teachers are worth.

We know. We’ve always known.

And if we don’t act like it now, when it matters most, the future will know that too.