Of teachers and economics

My first class of my first day of high school didn’t go all that well.

The teacher, whom I obviously didn’t know, was going through the class names — one by one — to see if anyone wanted to use something other than their God-given first name.

It was a thoughtful idea.

So when Michael was asked, he said “Mike.” Jennifer said “Jen” and William said “Bill.”

“Louis,” the teacher said as he came to me, “what would you like to be called?”

I didn’t hesitate.

“Please call me ‘sir.’”

I thought it was funny, and it got me the expected classroom laugh.

It also got me into detention that afternoon.

If the Guinness Book of World Records had a category for fastest idiot into detention, I’d still hold it.

But here’s the end of the story:

Four years later, when I graduated from high school, I had been in detention only once. That first day.

I was far from a saint, but that teacher taught me an invaluable lesson:

The quicker you figure out where the line is — the one you can’t cross — the more successful you will be.

Everyone’s line — I learned — was different. Play it too safe and you’ll never stand out. Play it too risky and you’ll stand out for all the wrong reasons.

I give a lot of credit, for whatever success I have had in life, to that lesson from that teacher.

I’ve thought about this a lot lately as I’ve pondered the upcoming school levies.

And my main conclusion is this: Teachers are important.

They have the ability to make or break young people and — by extension — make or break our communities.

Still, I understand the economic reality we all are facing.

Although a case can be made that teachers should be paid more, an equally compelling case could be made that teachers are doing better than most of us in salaries and benefits and days off.

So all of this, along with other school expenses, is looked at when we decide what to do with levies. (It’s important to note that not all of the above is paid for through local levies.)

In the end, for a taxpayer, it boils down to how much deeper can we reach into our pockets as the government asks for money?

I suspect most of us hope that school expenses and what we can afford can find some common ground. Why?

Because it is important.

ooo

I was hanging out at Friday morning’s Columbian Economic Forecast Breakfast. The joint was packed — great to see — and the mood was “guardedly optimistic.” Right before the main speaker began, William Pritchard, a locally based orthodontist, came up to say hello.

He’s a regular reader of The Columbian and a regular reader of this column.

Thanks, William!

William said he remembers a column I wrote several years ago and wondered if I would be surprised by that.

“Heck, I don’t think I remember the column I wrote last week,” I told him. So, yes, I would be surprised.

He said it was about the printed word and how important the printed word is, and how many people still consider it better than all that electronic stuff.

Well, I actually did remember that column, I told him. And I happen to still be in the camp that says there are too many important qualities about print for it not to thrive.

Oh, we’re putting a larger and larger emphasis on our Web site. No question about that. But print is still king.

Long live the king.

Lou Brancaccio is The Columbian’s editor. Reach him at 360-735-4505 or lou.brancaccio@columbian.com.