The last thing the teaching profession needs is more bashing, especially from an insider like me. As the school year comes to a close, I've been thinking more and more about why it seems that so many teachers have such low standards for themselves. In a typical day filled with encounters with fellow teachers, I go from feeling inspired and humbled by some of their wisdom and herculean efforts for students, to being thoroughly disgusted with others’ lack of integrity and professionalism.
Maybe I’m not the best person to judge the professional standards of teachers. Before becoming a teacher, all of my “real” jobs had been in law firms, where I was immersed in one of the most hyper-professional work environments imaginable. For better or worse, lawyers are simply more serious and exacting than most people. For example, if a meeting was set for 10:00 a.m., everyone would be assembled around the table by 9:55 a.m with their notepads and pens (or laptops) ready to go. People would have already thought at least a little bit about the issues to be discussed, and the whole thing would be as efficient as possible because wasted time is wasted money. No one would dare take a chance on others believing that they were the weakest link.
In contrast, I'll never forget my very first faculty meeting at my current school, where I witnessed several teachers strolling in late, others text messaging the whole time, several others carrying on audible conversations during the presentations, and—my favorite—one teacher revealing to the person next to me that she was going to leave the meeting early by faking a coughing spell and leaving the room, never to return. And this particular meeting wasn’t even that boring!
I have witnessed or heard about many other shocking examples of blatant unprofessionalism in my building: the teachers who leave their classes unattended for long stretches of time to talk on their cell phones, the teachers who brag about how little preparation they do, the teachers who never read or respond to their emails, the teachers who never attend department or faculty meetings, the teachers who dress like they are going to the basketball court or the club, the teachers who encourage students to fight other students, the teachers who work under the influence of drugs or alcohol, the teachers who talk badly about other teachers in front of students, the teachers who let students enter their own grades, the teachers who encourage anti-intellectualism and anti-patriotism, the teachers who have inappropriate personal relationships with students, the teachers who haven’t revised their lesson plans in years, the teachers who don’t write lesson plans at all, the teachers who can’t actually explain how their lessons make sense or how they fit into the larger unit they are teaching, the teachers who never assign work because they don’t want to have to grade it, the teachers who leave work hours (!) early, the teachers who never follow through with their promises or contribute to the professional community in any way, and on and on and on.
For the sake of argument, I could make many excuses for this bad behavior. I could talk about how some teachers lower their personal standards because they have been slowly demoralized by all of the insulting, counter-productive bureaucratic nonsense we deal with on a daily basis. I could talk about how teachers aren’t paid nearly enough to do all of the things we are asked to do, so doing less makes things seem more fair. I could talk about how some teachers feel that it is okay to “cheat” the system because they already pour so many of their personal resources into the job. I could talk about how teachers may not feel true loyalty and obligation to the profession because we aren’t self-regulating like doctors and lawyers. I could talk about how, due to the low pay and low prestige associated with teaching, ambitious college grads seek other careers while most teachers come from the bottom half of their college classes, which means that they may have never actually mastered the habits, attitudes, and intellectual skills required to be high achievers. I could talk about how some teachers, especially in schools like mine, feel justified in taking the “teaching” part of their jobs lightly because we are so busy parenting our students in so many ways. I could talk about how experience has taught some teachers that hard work is futile because so much of what happens to students is outside of our control anyway. But I won’t let us off that easy.
As teachers, we must never forget that we owe our students our very best efforts every day, no matter how justified we may feel in cutting corners. As employed college graduates (at least), we are already on the right side of the opportunity gap, and we must do everything we can to ensure that our students have the same opportunity. At the very minimum, we must not block their chances simply because we aren’t up to the job. I hope I never become so jaded that I forget this simple admonishment.
