In my inbox the other day, I opened a message from the family of a student who had been in my first seventh grade class nine years ago. This former student graduates from Yale next week. Her mother said that her daughter, a lively, intelligent student who undoubtedly could have pursued the career of her choice, had opted to enter teaching via Teach for America.
This is good news. That education is attracting quality candidates is really good news. While the starting salaries for teachers have risen over the past two decades, overall respect for the teaching profession has ebbed. Fine young scholars who might have considered joining us in the classroom accepted challenges in other careers, partly because of public contention toward educators. Convincing articulate, hard working kids to become teachers is a tough sell. The school-as-workplace has become increasingly hostile. In the same way that our students have been reduced to composite test scores, teachers have become numerical entities. As educators, we understand the flaws in the student testing system. The disputatious public, however, does not have the same sympathy for teacher ratings. After The New York Post published teacher evaluations in March, the blood was in the water. I’m a good teacher, not such a great swimmer.
I keep asking people why teachers became the bad guys. Well, who knew civilians have such tenure envy? Outsiders think if you make it to the three year mark, you’re a lifer, you never have to grade another essay, never have to write curriculum. Hardly anyone believes me when I say it isn’t so. Tenure isn’t the employment equlivilent of the win-for-life lotto scratch-off. I swear. Tenure is due process, plain and simple, protecting teachers from arbitrary dismissal.
I am reminded teachers are overpaid and underworked. What, you didn’t know this? Shocking. Where have you been anyway? Planning lessons? Grading papers? Communicating with parents, attending meetings, serving on committees, going to concerts and plays, chaperoning sporting events? Good grief, what are you waiting for? Drop that plan book and settle into your Laze-Boy recliner. Get your bon bons and let the snacking begin! And do not pass GO, do not collect $200.
But surely these issues have been around forever, right? Tenure has protected teachers for at least a generation and kids and teachers alike have pretty much looked forward to weekends and summer vacation. So if nothing has changed, maybe teachers have always been the enemy.
But no. Think about the teachers who influenced your life. You all know them. They weren’t enemies. They shared their knowledge and inspired you to develop your own talents.
For me, these influences were two of my high school teachers. Dr. Ross taught me to write with clarity and authority. He insisted. His five line summaries of American novels were exercises in frustration for a high school sophomore. How could I ever express the gist of Sister Carrie in five handwritten lines? But the discipline he instilled shaped me as a writer and as a thinker. Dr. Ross, demanding and precise, but not the enemy.
Dr. Horan took me through European history. With her as my AP tour guide, I not only hit all of the hot spots—the Inquisition, the French Revolution, the scramble for Africa—but together we detoured into the out-of-the way places that only the natives visit: Franz Ferdinand’s family’s disapproval his wife, Sophie, the chaos of the early days at the Louvre . History became a complex narrative replete with daring and corruption and virtue surpassing the most engrossing Hollywood box office hit. I suddenly saw myself as a player in this story, someone who might contribute to the plot and maybe even heal the conflicts. Nope, Dr. Horan definitely wasn’t the enemy, either.
I am overjoyed that smart kids are entering teaching. It is reassuring. They get it; they know teachers aren’t the enemy. I worry, though, that they won’t stay with us. Youthful idealism may not be enough to carry them through the very difficult first few years in the classroom when it seems nothing goes the way it is expected to go. Coupled with the current pitchfork mentality, we may see these fine new minds driven away. I hope not. We need them. Our students need them.
The Joy of Teaching 