I am sitting at a table at Sturdy Shelter Brewing in Batavia for my third book event in two weeks. It’s been nice to sell a few books, but the real value of each event has been meeting people and talking about education.

I particularly treasure conversations with those still in the classroom. I know: teaching is harder than it ever was in my time, but this country depends on these teachers to help prepare our youth for an evermore uncertain future. Each one of them has stories to tell.

At my reading last Sunday night, after I read the opening of my novel about a teacher in Texas who struggles with micromanagement and limits on the history she can include, a current teacher came up to me, eyes moist, to thank me. A history teacher herself, she struggled even here in liberal Illinois. That same night one of the facilitators, a teacher I know and respect, told me how much harder it had gotten. Mental health issues, absenteeism, a lack of cooperation and collaboration, helicopter parents, cheating and misuse of AI – the list of challenges seems pretty overwhelming.

I heard the same issues from teachers who stopped by my table at the local authors event at my public library last weekend. I read an entry from my favorite teacher’s blog where even he, one of the most reflective and committed teachers I know, wrote about burnout and discouragement.

I do indeed feel fortunate to have taught where and when I did. I faced plenty of challenges, but nothing like those crippling too many teachers today. My book events bring me face-to-face with those teachers, and I ache for them.

What does this mean for us as a country? We need to face these challenges head-on. We need to find ways to support teachers who are still deep in the trenches, doing their best to make a difference for their learners. Teachers and students need more than the lip service we freely offer them—they need us to work to change the culture, to provide support services, to make their workload manageable. The future holds further challenge, and our students are ill-prepared for it, our teachers too worn out. We simply can’t afford to wait.

You can make a difference. Learn about your school’s programs. Go to board meetings to support reasonable budgets. Consider volunteering. Ask what the schools need.

I’ve written often about our failure to meet the needs of our students and the cost to their learning.  Now I’m asking my readers to think about how to support teachers who are trying to help those learners. If our teachers are too burned out to prepare our children for the future that awaits them, we’re in even deeper trouble than we thought. All of us have a stake here.