Unsung Heroes
We hope you join us in honoring these amazing people who are often over looked for their incredible contributions to society.
The soldiers spouse.
Every soldier in our country is a hero. They are all potentially putting themselves in harms way to protect our citizens. I don’t think you would find many people who would argue against that. Behind the scenes of that hero is another hero. The spouse of the soldier. The spouse of the soldier never gets any of the praise, but gets the bulk of the workload.
Many of our soldiers are relocated every 3 or 4 years. When they are the lions share of that move is usually handled by the spouse.
The soldier is called away to do his/her duty. That is the soldiers responsibility and we all respect and honor that.
Often when the soldier gets relocated they are deployed and the spouse gets to deal with everything else.
They are dropped in a new city where they have no family and no friends. They are often left to unpack everything. They don’t know the city. They don’t know where the grocery store is. They don’t know where the hospital is. They don’t have a doctor to take the kids to. They just get to figure everything out.
This can be a very daunting task. Now add in the fact that they have children. Their kids miss their friends. They miss grandma and grandpa. They almost always “hate” the new place. The kids are upset because they don’t have any friends at their new school. The spouse gets to deal with the myriad of problems associated with this. They hear all the complaints. They deal with all of the tears.
Once the spouse unpacks the house and figures out where all of the basic necessities are she still has to register the kids for school. Oh what is that you have 3 kids in 3 different schools? Now that they are in school you get to take them back and forth everyday…. to 3 different schools. When school is out, it is time for extracurricular activities. Sports, computers, dance, karate scouts etc. The child may not want to even do the activity, but the spouse knows that it is a great place to make new friends. It is where character is built right? She has also signed herself up for taking the child to practices and rehearsals everyday. Don’t forget the games and the recitals on the weekend. Oh I’m sorry have you signed up for snack day? We need classroom volunteers. We need a team mom.
Don’t forget the kids get sick and you get to stay up with them all night.
You can’t get sick though. That just can’t happen. You don’t get to call in sick. You never get a “personal day”
The men and women that are at home taking care of the children of our soldiers are truly unsung heros
They have all the responsibility and they don’t get any of the accolades. There are no awards for them.
When you see a soldier it is nice to thank them for their service. Take a moment and say the same thing to the spouse. Maybe tell them that you recognize how difficult their service is too. I promise you they will appreciate it.
un·sung/ˌənˈsəNG/ adjective
not celebrated or praised.
he·ro /ˈhirō/
a person who is idealized or admired for great deeds.
The special needs teacher.
All teachers are wonderful. They really are. Today we would like to take an extra moment to recognize special needs teachers. They truly are unsung heroes. The teachers we have spoken to aren’t just great teachers. They are great human beings.
Special needs teachers deal with a variety of students that have physical, cognitive and emotional disabilities. Very often the children they are working with don’t just have one disability, they have a combination of disabilities.
The special needs teacher can be working with autistic/aspergers children, Down syndrome, ADHD. Some school districts will put aggressive children in with this mix when they don’t technically have a disability, but the school just doesn’t know what to do with this individual.
Many of the teachers we spoke with mentioned that they felt like their classroom was a dumping ground for all the students the school and the administrators did not want to deal with.
In addition to their disabilities many of the students they are working with are also dealing with issues at home.
The research we have done varies and is all over the board, but there is no denying the divorce rate among parents that have children with disabilities is off the charts. Some sources cite the number as high as 80%. This is another challenge for the students and in turn the teachers to overcome.
Many of the students also come from minority groups. The environment they are teaching in is often an inner city environment. The areas they work In are often inter racial. Some of the students have antisocial behavior while the child next to that one is very aggressive. This can pose another level of challenges that the under staffed teacher has to overcome.
This mix of disabilities, mix of race, aggressive children, introverts, children with issues at home.
This just adds fuel to the fire for the teacher that is usually grossly understaffed and most likely underpaid.
Teaching is difficult. Connecting with any student can be challenging. When you are trying to teach a student with disabilities and trying to connect with them and you add having family issues on top of it. The level of difficulty that these teachers are working with is astronomical.
With constant budget concerns most school districts do not want to spend the money on additional teachers and assistants no matter how badly they are needed. If the school has money to spend it usually goes to the areas of need that are a little sexier. The school just got a new gymnasium is sexier to sell the tax payer than we just hired 3 new assistants for the special needs class. So now we throw on top of the challenges that these teachers face on a daily basis that they are grossly understaffed.
Our research team has spoken with teachers who are sworn at daily, screamed at frequently, physically assaulted. One teacher we spoke with said a month has not gone by when she hasn’t been hit by a student. She refuses to say anything because she knows if she does that the student will be kicked out of school. She then asked what will happen to him then. She then said “he is a good kid.”
Many of these heroes are parents themselves. When they finish their Herculean task of getting through the day they get to go home to their own families.
When they get home to face whatever family challenges they may face with their own family they are often emotionally drained. They can often face a spouse who does not want to hear about their day. They are told it is too negative and makes their spouse upset.
Our research has heard from many of the teachers that we spoke with that their spouse didn’t want to hear about their day. It is always too negative. This puts strain on their own family.
These hero’s don’t get to vent when they have bad day.
The heart that these teachers have for their students is truly amazing. The care that they give these kids is unbelievable. If you don’t know who the special ed teacher is at your school take a moment to find out who it is. They won’t be too hard to find. They will probably be the teacher who looks exhausted. You will see them early in the morning and they are usually the teacher that is staying late to “take care of her kids.”
Please take a moment and tell them how you appreciate what they do. Buy them a cup of coffee if you get the chance. They probably won’t accept it. They would probably say I would rather you spent the $5 on a set of markers for the classroom. They aren’t being rude. They are just the kind of people that would rather see it go to the kids.
We all think Firemen and Firewomen in general are universally considered heroes and they are. I don’t think anyone would deny that this is hard work and extremely dangerous work. These men and women deserve the credit they get for working in this dangerous profession.
There is however a niche in small town America of volunteer firemen/firewomen that really goes unnoticed. These men and women volunteer for this dangerous work. Let me repeat that. They volunteer to do this.
They don’t have a nice pension waiting at the other end of their career. They don’t have extra weeks of vacation. They don’t have paid holidays off. In fact it is quite the opposite.
They take their evenings and weekends and train. They put together emergency plans for not only fires, but natural disasters, lost hikers, missing children.
They practice scenarios for a child falling in a river. They even practice for the unthinkable school shooting.
They are the volunteers out there when there is an earthquake or an avalanche or a flood or a tornado or a hurricane or heavy snow or a missing person or someone fell in an old well or a kid gets lost in an old mine or a cat is stuck in and tree. When they aren’t training or responding to any one of those tragedies, they even have to be ready for an actual fire.
The funny thing is that these people are usually the same people who are the girl scout troop leader or the head of the PTA or the coach of the team.
They are usually the same ones who are helping the old neighbor with the leak in his roof. Or they help him cut up that tree that fell in the yard. They are the ones that shovel the widows walk after the big snow storm.
They are the ones sending packages to troops overseas. They are the ones that collect toys for children during the holiday season so less fortunate kids can have a nice holiday too. They are the ones that visit the sick and dying children in the hospital.
They are the people who bring over dinner after the neighbor loses their mother or father.
These are the same people who buy the lemonade from the kids lemonade stand in the heat of summer.
There is one other thing that these volunteers also do. They all have actual jobs. They still have to provide for their own families while they are taking care of ours.
There are wonderful firemen and police officers out there that are doing all of these amazing things as well. We don’t want to take anything away from them. They are heroes of the highest order.
We think it would be great if we just took a moment to recognize these unsung heroes that do it all as volunteers. They do it for free. These men and women that do so much for us all and do so much for society.
So maybe the next time you see a volunteer fire person. Thank them. Shake their hand. Buy their coffee or their breakfast if it is within your means. Let them know that you appreciate what they do. Sometimes acknowledgement of a job well done is all we need.
