Will You Apply?

In the last month or so, I have been thinking a lot about how our culture in the United States considers the profession of teaching; a view I often try to ignore because it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.  I really love what I do; I am intellectually engaged every day, and I am better person because I am a teacher.  Yet this societal pressure sometimes makes me second guess my choices, in spite of how happy I am in a classroom.

Why am I thinking this way?  Our school is now seeking a new leader, and this prompted a certain family member of mine to reiterate her frequent question to me, “why aren’t you applying for these jobs?”  The next reason was a Huffington Post blog by Dr. Matthew Lynch.  Dr. Lynch reported on research of Steven Paine and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that, “suggests our lack of respect for teachers is the nation’s number one enemy of education,” and that, in other countries, “it is a tremendous honor to be a teacher, and teachers are afforded a status comparable to what doctors lawyers, and other highly regarded professionals enjoy in the U.S.” 

Having been a practicing lawyer and then a teacher, I can vouch for this different perception.  A cocktail party provides the perfect little microcosm of these impressions.   If I say I am an attorney, often people perk up and listen.  If I say I am a teacher, eyes glaze over, and I have to work harder to engage.  Sadly, these perceptions are even true within the educational community itself.

According to Dr. Lynch, the OECD report suggests that a start for improving the value of education, and presumably with that, teacher esteem, is to offer educators more responsibility and the opportunity, “to become innovators and researchers in education, not just deliverers of the curriculum."

I am fortunate that our school is still young and entrepreneurial enough to allow just that.  Teachers have the ability to innovate in the classroom, to change what isn’t working, and to run even farther with what is.  I am not sure I agree that simply allowing teachers to pursue these opportunities on a larger scale will change the level of respect afforded teachers in our culture; rather, teachers are limited in doing so because of lack of respect for their abilities and training.  The incredible teachers I have met outside my little Sage bubble are ready and willing to do this work, but they are sometimes severely restricted from doing so because of the restrictions of state testing and other mechanized approaches to education, approaches that stem from a lack of trust and respect for the work they are doing.  Yet perhaps a conscious decision by the larger educational community to empower teachers this way will work.  At least it is a start.