Let us pause to pay tribute to our teachers

Given all that’s happened, and given the season, let us consider again the public schoolteacher, that American icon maligned by certain politicians, but a professional, nonetheless, who soldiers on day after day, in the face of tall odds, to educate, to inspire and hopefully to draw out the very best from our young people.

By all accounts, that’s what Jennifer Williamson was – a professional, dedicated educator, and an inspiration.

Williamson, who died in the horrible Route 80 bus crash Thursday while chaperoning students on a field trip to Waterloo Village, taught fifth grade at East Brook Middle School in Paramus. She was, according to Mayor Richard LaBarbiera, “loved by everyone – especially the students.”

Community remembers:Popular Paramus teacher who died in crash was devoted to students: 'That was her life.'

Related:Student, teacher killed in Paramus school bus crash on Route 80 in Mount Olive

That seems high praise for any teacher. And it was echoed by her students. Online comments from some of them included phrases such as “best teacher in the school,” and “really awesome.”

Certainly, we all have our favorite teachers. Mine was Opal Shively, who took me along the magical, mystical path of “The Canterbury Tales” when I was a pimply 11th grader. She was older than most teachers, but so fun to be around.

I never thought about what dreams Mrs. Shively may have harbored beyond the classroom. I saw her one hour a day, five days per week, every week of one semester. Then she was gone out of my life.

She inspired without me knowing, nurturing a lifelong love of reading and writing. I guess you could say she’s never been completely out of my life.

I think that’s what the best teachers do, inspire without us knowing. They recognize every student, though they may not get through to all of them.

Tim Kennedy, Williamson’s brother-in-law, described her as one of the truly dedicated, one of those willing to do extra for her students and her school.

“Her class had the best scores on the state exam in the school system,” Kennedy said. “She spent that much time one-on-one. That was her life. The children. And that’s what she loved.”

Williamson had been a teacher 20 years. No one stays that long in a profession unless they love it. Unless it has become part of who they are.

I think, given the other tragic news this week out of Texas, and another horrible school shooting with multiple deaths, it is time we celebrate in our own ways the sacrifice teachers make, and the greater and greater sacrifices they are being asked to make.

Especially in public schools, they are being buried in paperwork, and often constrained by curricula that, as they say, forces them to “teach to the test.” Of course, the really good ones will still find the time and energy to inspire, to keep their students hungry for knowledge, dare I say, for knowledge’s sake.

As we go into the coming week, students, teachers and staff at East Brook Middle School will continue to grieve even as they attempt to push ahead, to the end of the semester. Indeed, Williamson’s colleagues will be forced to carry on in her absence. They have no choice; the school year is not yet over.

Down in Texas, teachers, students and staff at Santa Fe High School, sight of Friday’s shooting that claimed at least 10 lives … they will be asked to carry on as well.

What I mean to say here is that most of us have no idea of the sacrifice teachers make, or the challenges, big and small, they face, or the difference that they make, today, tomorrow, and perhaps years from now, on their students’ lives.

Bruce Lowry is the editorial page editor for The Record.