To teach or not to teach? That is the question--
Whether 'tis nobler in our profession to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous infection,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing them, be fired? To quarantine, to sleep--
No more--and by that sleep to say we end
The exposure to a thousand viral shocks
That flesh is heir to--'tis an isolation
Devoutly to be wished! Self-quarantine and sleep.
But sleep, a chance to dream--aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep at home what dreams may come
When we don't shuffle into our place of employment,
Must give us pause. There's the disrespect
That makes calamity of so long a career.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of ed reform,
Th' oppressors' wrong, the proud oligarchs' condemnation,
The pangs of despised professionalism, the laws that hasten
From the insolence of office the spurns of educators
That their patient forbearance of th' unworthy takes,
When they themselves might their quietus make
With a simple resignation? But how would children learn,
But for the grunt and sweat of weary teachers,
Whose dread of something better after the schoolhouse,
The undiscovered careers from whose places
No teacher ever returns, confounds the will
And makes them rather bear the ills they have
Than fly to others that they know not of?
Thus dedication and the profession makes cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the fevered crown of virus,
And movements of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.