With the calendar turning to July, it seems appropriate that today’s #stampoftheday honors school teachers (and other educators), who hopefully are getting a well-deserved break after an especially tumultuous spring and what is likely to be a very challenging fall.

Of course, none of what it means to be a teacher today was envisioned when the stamp, which commemorates the 100th anniversary of the founding of the National Education Association, was issued on July 1, 1957.

Prior to the 1850s, public schools were still a relatively new concept, as most were privately run. But by the mid-1850s, public schools were starting to rival private academies in number. Schoolteachers had formed associations in 15 of the 31 states, but there was no national body to coordinate their interests. Thomas W. Valentine, principal of a large public school in Brooklyn, who also president of the New York Teachers Association, issued a call for a national organization because “the time has come when the teachers of the nation should gather into one great educational brotherhood.”

In response, 43 educators gathered in Philadelphia in the summer of 1857 and formed the National Teachers Association (which was renamed the National Education Association in 1870 when it merged with several other groups). Two women who attended the convention were made honorary members and allowed to sign the constitution. However, women were barred from joining until 1866. While blacks were not officially barred from the NEA, for the most part, blacks (and whites teaching in segregated schools), joined a separate organization (originally the National Colored Teachers Organization later renamed the American Teachers Association (ATA)). That group existed as a separate entity until 1966 when it merged with the NEA.

The NEA also was very slow to support school integration largely because its leadership feared offending members from southern states whose support they needed in their efforts to secure more federal aid for schools. In fact, it wasn’t until 1964 that that delegates to NEA’s national convention, overrode the recommendations of NEA’s officers and committees and voted to strongly endorse efforts to desegregate America’s schools.

So it’s not surprising that the stamp – which was issued three years after the Supreme Court decision outlawing segregated schools but seven years before the NEA officially supported that ruling (and nine years before the NEA merged with the ATA), shows a white woman school teacher with two white children, a primly dressed girl and a boy wearing a tie. The teacher is holding a book and pointing at a globe. The girl, who is in profile, is looking attentively at the teacher; the boy, who is facing front, is giving her more of a sidelong glance.

The image really begs for a caption. Here’s two that came to mind:

“This, Donald, is Vietnam, where you could be sent to fight in a pointless war, unless, of course, you know a doctor who will say that you can’t fight because you have ‘bone spurs.'”

“And this, Karen, is Europe, where, when you’re older, freedom-hating socialists will force people to wear masks, depriving them of their God-given right to act irresponsibly and infect people with a deadly virus.”

The image also makes me think the gratitude I have for the many people who have been teachers in my life. And is also reminds me that I appreciate current teachers, who had to turn on a dime in the spring and learn how to teach remotely and now are trying to figure out strategies for the multiple ways they will have to teach this fall.

I hope you also think of – and thank – the people who have been teachers in your life…

…and I still hope you’ll suggest other captions for this classic stamp.

Be well, stay safe, fight for justice and work for peace.