Achoo!
I have been suffering through allergies here in my new hometown of Jacksonville and the sleepless nights have provided me a window to watch an inordinate amount of cable news. The budget fight in Wisconsin, whatever you may think of it, has shined a spotlight on the teaching profession in America and I have been astounded by the degree of hostility being displayed towards teachers and the fundamental misconceptions of what teachers actually do.
I am biased.
I am married to a public school teacher. My mother was a public school teacher. I went to public schools and attended a public university with the intent of becoming a public school teacher. But as much as this particular debate is to do with the costs of public education, the brush being painted of the teaching profession tars all – public, private, charter, and alternative. And I think it does real damage.
To me this is not terribly complicated or at all political. If we ever want to get serious about new forms of education (not reform, but new forms) we will need to hold the teaching profession in high regard. I don’t know how tearing it down can lead to anything productive. No one goes into education for the money. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t well-compensated educators (and by the by, why would there be something wrong with that?), but those whose sole purpose in choosing a profession is making money surely do not choose to be teachers.
Teaching is noble, but not all teachers may be noble. I am not naive. There should be accountability in teaching and I don’t pretend to know how to address that in public schools with union contracts because that simply is not my world. It is hard enough to do in a private school. But I do know that whatever legitimate frustration there is about a lack of accountability in the public sector ought not delegitimate the entire profession.
I wrote in an early blog post of my belief that teaching is a sacred profession. I mean that literally; I believe that teaching is a religious act. I believe this to be true of all teaching – not the teaching of religious subjects or by religious people – that an inner-city math lesson is as much a religious act as is a Rabbinics Class in a Jewish Day School. Because so much of teaching is relational (with your students, your parents, your colleagues, etc.) and because in order to relate you must acknowledge the divine in others, I really believe that teaching is in and of itself “religious”. [You can substitute “spiritual” if it makes you more comfortable.] I do not think it is an accident that many teachers consider their work a “calling” and not a “career”.
And so to the teachers who have been called and the parents who partner with them, I offer words from one of my most favorite books on teaching:
“One of the great sorrows in human life is the discovery, too late, of our own beauty and of the beauty of much that we do. Such is often the case with teachers, as we contemplate ourselves and our vocation. At the deepest level, every teacher wants to become a better teacher, even a great teacher; in moments of insight, every teacher is aware of hidden gifts of creativity and imagination.
“But often the pressures, deadlines, and exigencies of dailiness keep teachers from standing back and viewing their work with the care both they and their work deserve. Often when there might be times at faculty meetings or on in-service days, demands for the newest, the latest, and the updated can get in the way and preclude the possibility of standing back, of being still and recalling the excitement and lure which drew us to teaching in the first place.
“We need an arena, a context, and an occasion to contemplate our teaching and to recover, if we have lost them, the dreams and the hopes, the vision and the grandeur that lie at the core of teaching. We need an opportunity to rediscover the creative, artistic teachers we are and were meant to be.” – Maria Harris, from Teaching & Religious Imagination.
I hope teaching on our faculty provides such an opportunity…
