Column: Finally, Tim Walz puts teachers in their place: the national spotlight

As the daughter of a gun-owning, gun-control-supporting veteran and progressive social studies teacher whose calm, exasperatingly informed, “bulls—”-calling rebuttal of political speeches predated the recent media trend of “live fact-checking” by several decades, I find myself personally thrilled by Kamala Harris’ decision to select Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.

Not only do the two men share the same devastating “you can’t be serious” sense of humor, it’s about damn time K-12 teachers got the respect and political prominence they deserve.

Teachers are the unsung heroes of democracy and Walz, who taught social studies for nine years at Mankato West High School, is a walking, gone-viral-talking reminder of that.

A reminder this country sorely needs.

Famous people love to praise their favorite educators from podiums, in interviews or while receiving awards. Remember when Tom Hanks outed his drama teacher after winning best actor for “Philadelphia,” which spawned the film “In & Out”?

And certainly Hollywood loves a good teacher story — from “Welcome Back, Kotter” to ”Abbott Elementary,” “Dead Poets Society” to “Precious,” the importance of educators is regularly celebrated onscreen with pathos and passion. Indeed, as the small-town teacher/football coach who became advisor to his school’s first LGBTQ club, and a former NRA member who became a gun-control advocate after the 2018 Parkland school shooting, Walz himself has a backstory that seems an easy sell in any pitch meeting: ”Friday Night Lights” meets “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

Still, teachers, particularly those at public schools, remain absurdly underpaid and overwhelmed, their profession honored by a national appreciation day and little else, unless you count a higher burnout rate than any other profession.

Here’s hoping Walz will help change that. As he said in his first campaign rally with Harris in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, while introducing his wife, Gwen, “a 29-year public school educator”: “Don’t ever underestimate teachers.”

Obviously, he brings many other things to the ticket. He is a six-term congressman and a two-term governor who leaped into national prominence in recent weeks with take-downs of former President Donald Trump and GOP vice-presidential candidate JD Vance, whom Walz famously referred to as “just weird.”

“These are weird people on the other side,” Walz said in an interview on MSNBC. “They want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room. That’s what it comes down to, and don’t get sugarcoating this: These are weird ideas.”

Whether clad in a suit or a “Dad hat” and T-shirt, he talks to people rather than at them and seems capable of making his case in a way that is both deeply informed and easily understood. His remarks went viral because they eschewed political jargon and explained the situation with same “come on now” ease that he used to deliver a tutorial on how to change out a burned-out headlight harness on a 2014 Ford Edge.

Which is precisely what the best teachers do.

If there is anyone who can deliver large amounts of complicated information in a way that educates and inspires a large group of disparate, distracted and fractious individuals, it’s a teacher.

Anyone who has stood in front of a classroom of high school students at pretty much any hour of the school day knows there is no tougher constituency, or audience, in the world.

You need someone to stare down bratty antics or blow up misinformation? As Walz has already proved, a good teacher can do it midsentence, without blinking, before returning to a lecture on westward expansion.

The hours of prep, the verbal facility needed to get and keep students’ attention, the vision to see both the entire class and the individual student, the patience to handle the inevitable disruptions, the diplomacy involved in many parental interactions, not to mention the increasing responsibility for classroom safety: Is it any wonder that teachers experience twice the amount of stress of the general workforce?

Walz has said he decided to go into politics after he took a group of students to a rally for then-President George W. Bush and they were asked to leave because one of the students had a John Kerry sticker. As origin stories go, it’s a great anecdote, but teaching was far from just a stepping stone for Walz. In office, he’s continued to champion public education as a key to maintaining a successful democracy.

After Harris announced Walz as her vice-presidential pick, he was quickly endorsed by both the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.

“Walz successfully passed legislation providing free school meals to every Minnesota student, ensuring no child will have to learn on an empty stomach,” NEA President Becky Pringle said in a statement. “He increased education spending by billions of dollars, raised teacher pay, enacted paid family and medical leave for all families, provided unemployment insurance to hourly school workers, and expanded the collective bargaining rights of Minnesotans.”

The media will, no doubt, lean into Walz’s experience as a football coach — in 1999 he helped Mankato West win a state championship and political wonks love a good sports metaphor. But coaching a team involves harnessing a preexisting love of the sport. Being a teacher means showing up day after day to help a group of people, who often would rather be anywhere else, learn the things they need to know.

Whether it’s the danger of banning books and restricting women’s right to choose, or how to change a burned-out headlight harness.