I believe that teaching is a worthy
occupation, and those who commit themselves to the job of educating the
nation’s youth, should be held in the highest regard as the professionals they
are. Unfortunately, however, many do not
think that teaching is a profession in the same way that lawyers, doctors,
architects and accountants are.
There
are several reasons why some do not regard teachers as professionals. One is
the fact that teaching has traditionally been a female dominated profession, as
a result, it is viewed with the latent sexism that still permeates our
culture. Going back to its earliest
inception, public education was one of the few vocations for young women
outside of the home, however it was widely assumed that when a teacher married,
she would leave the classroom and focus her attention on her home and family.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, approximately 76% of
teachers today are women, this is particularly true in the elementary grades.
As a result, teachers still wear the pink collar and endure the latent sexism
associated with it, in the form of low pay, low expectations, low status and a
paternalistic hierarchy in which those at the top know what’s best for those
below.
Another
reason why teachers are not considered professionals is due to the fact that
there are so many of us. There are approximately 3.7 million teachers employed
across this nation. In order to have a licensed teacher in every classroom the
process by which one becomes a teacher has been lowered to such an extent as to
meet the critical demand. Stanford University historian David Labaree calls this
the “devils bargain” between quantity and quality: producing enough teachers to
meet demand, or preparing fewer teachers to high standards. Under pressure, he
says, they chose quantity.[i]
Think of it this way, if getting into a teacher preparation program were as
difficult as getting into law school, how in the world would we have enough
teachers to go around? This means that
colleges of education essentially admit and graduate students who academically
would not be our first choice for educating our children, this is especially
true at the elementary level, According to recent research “While aspiring
secondary school teachers do well compared to the national average on SAT and
GRE exams, the scores of future elementary school teachers fall near the bottom
of test takers. Their GRE scores are 100 points below the national average.”[ii]
I addition to the devil’s bargain already mentioned schools of education enroll
more students than other university departments because education students are
a primary source of revenue for the school, “Universities use their teacher
education programs as “cash cows,” requiring them to generate revenue to fund
more prestigious departments. This forces them to increase their enrollments
and lower their admissions standards. Schools with low admissions standards
also tend to
have low graduation requirements.”[iii]
To
be clear, there are a number of education schools that produce top notch
teachers in this country, but those school are generally more expensive to
attend, and because the teacher’s earning potential doesn’t warrant the
investment, most classrooms are staffed by teachers at the low to middle level
of the talent pool. I should also point out that there are a number of highly
intelligent and motivated people who have received degrees in education who are
incredible teachers, but generally speaking, American schools are going to have
to figure out a way to attract the best and the brightest into the profession
and keep them for the long haul. Those of intellectual means and ambition are
not going to settle for the working conditions and dead end prospects of
today’s classroom, there are easier, less stressful ways to make earn a living.
Additionally
teachers are not considered professionals because of the fact that most of us
have accumulated over thirteen thousand hours of class time as students. We
have engaged, whether we know it or not, in “apprenticeship by observation”
this is the idea that we can all teach because we have watched our teachers.
Most people would agree that watching medical dramas on T.V. is not enough
training to preform open heart surgery, the same way that court T.V. dramas are
not adequate substitutions for a law degree. Teaching on-the-other-hand seems
like something anyone can do. As long as
you have a rudimentary grasp of the subject, how hard can it be? It is this
attitude based upon ignorance that prevents many from seeing teaching as a
profession. Finally, many do not look upon teaching as a true profession
because of the hours we work. After all you don’t see other professionals who
are done with their workday by the early afternoon or enjoy constant holiday
and observational breaks and of course the coups de grace, summers off. Of
course try to explain this to a dedicated teacher and they will look at you
like you are crazy, due to the fact that those teachers work constantly, paid
and unpaid, contracted hours or not, good teachers put in as many more hours
than most lawyers and doctors.
Whether
or not the public see us as the professionals we are it is important that we
conduct ourselves as professionals, we may not be able to change the public’s
perception of teachers overnight, but we are able to influence the small circle
of students, colleagues, administrators, parents, and stake holders that we
interact with on a daily basis.
No comments:
Post a Comment