Today I met with my four-year-old’s teachers to discuss his progress this year. He is a wonderful boy (yes, I’m biased), and they were happy to tell me all about how he’s been doing. I thanked them for creating such a warm and welcoming environment for all their students. My son talks about them daily and clearly loves and respects them. That is the highest praise I can imagine.

I told these teachers how highly he esteems them, and how his feelings for them made me feel they were great people. It takes a really special person to be a preschool teacher. Of course I think my son is amazing, but I’m not so sure how I would handle SIXTEEN four-year-olds in a classroom all day. I, like most of us, would be out of my depth and unable to cope with their needs.

There are a great many overpaid people in this world doing work that has little meaning in the grand scheme of things. Just look at the tech bros actively making everything worse for everyone. Politicians. Dishonest investors. The current thugs in charge of our government is a tale I don’t wish to get into here, but they are destroying everything around them and are paid handsomely to do it. The list of highly paid humans doing lousy things is almost endless.

What all these jobs have in common is that not one of them can hold a candle to a good preschool teacher, not in terms of what they give to society, nor in the difficulty of their jobs. Preschool teachers are caregivers, educators–they nurture the most vulnerable population in the country. They deserve our praise and respect, and they’re severely underpaid.

If you’re reading this, be sure to thank an educator. Right now, they are under assault in this country. I have absolutely no respect for people who think teaching is easy, or that teachers get summers off, or that they have easy hours. Such talking points show a vast, dangerous ignorance as to what teachers do. There is no more important job anywhere. Without good teachers, this country would be in even worse shape than it is. When I drop my son off, I am entrusting his teachers with the most valuable thing in the world. Surely they deserve better than the way we treat them in the US.