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.
I've been interested a great deal in this particular issue. I hated high school for a variety of reasons, but I'll never forget the good teachers I had nor will I forget the really bad ones who didn't care a whit about what I had to say or whether or not I was learning.
ReplyDeleteThe documentary that you mention (sideways) in your blog's title really struck me as a really easy slam on unionism because it gave power to people who really have an important job to do yet get very little for it. The role of trade unionism in education, then, becomes even stranger because the arguments made about higher pay are really only achieved when teachers unionize.
I want to know from you, man: is having a union helpful where you work? Do you have one? Would having a structure help you or hurt you, in your opinion?
Teachers unions prevent performance based pay structures. We will never see improvements in the public education system until the teachers are paid according to their effectiveness in the classroom (much like almost every other profession). Until then we have to count on the small percentage of highly dedicated teachers like you.
ReplyDelete"Teachers unions prevent performance based pay structures."
ReplyDeleteI highly encourage people that are interested to look at research done about pay for teaching professionals. There's a great summary at http://www.employmentpolicy.org/topic/402/op-ed/battle-over-public-sector-collective-bargaining-wisconsin-and-elsewhere ...
You've raised an important issue here in terms of the quality of the teachers in our schools. I do agree that there is a link between incentive/reward and performance, but let's step back a second and question a couple of things. First, I don't think we can assume that every mediocre teacher can or will become better if a tastier carrot were dangled in front of her. There are, unfortunately, people in classrooms who are simply not good enough to do the job or do not want to be better at the job, so the first task becomes weeding them out. We can't only implement a system that will motivate people to do better--we must also be able to remove those who can't or won't perform. But perhaps even more important, don't we want to keep the people who will be good teachers because it's their job? Don't we want to send the message of "Do this right because it matters and because you signed up for it" rather than the message "better=money"? In other words, those teachers not cutting it right now knew, going in, that their rewards and pay would be low, and their expectations high, and yet they were able to get into the system anyway. When this happens in other crucial social fields, like nursing, first responders, or emergency dispatchers, the weak get weeded out because the stakes are too high. We must understand that the stakes in teaching, as well, are too high. Even if we couldn't adjust teacher pay/benefits, if we had a system in place to funnel OUT the low-performers, the students would benefit, and more high-performers would be attracted to teaching because they wouldn't have to deal with low-performing adult peers. This alone would start to solve the problem even if we never raised teacher salary a cent.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your great comments.
ReplyDelete@organize_crime: Yes, I am a part of the local teacher's union. Honestly (and I hate to this), the only time I ever think about the union is when another teacher, usually a low-performer, whips out our negotiated agreement in order to justify why s/he doesn't have to do something. It is my impression that most teachers give little thought to union matters, because we're simply too busy. With that said, we do appreciate the work they do on our behalf (especially regarding our working conditions and salary/benefits protection), so I do believe that the union is helpful. But make no mistake about it: the union exists to protect adults, not children.
@Anonymous: Regarding performance pay, I will be writing about this issue in an upcoming post, but I will say now that research shows that it doesn't really raise student achievement. However, the unions, perhaps bowing to public opinion, are starting to embrace this idea more, as demonstrated by the fact that a new performance pay pilot program is being rolled out in my jurisdiction next year (and many others, I presume). The thing that matters most to teachers (myself included) is how we define "student achievement." Most of us have little faith in standardized tests as a measure of our effectiveness, so tying our pay to them makes us nervous. More to come on that later!
I must confess to having sat in the back of faculty meetings grading papers, and in retrospect I do feel badly about that. However, I have also been to faculty meetings that existed simply because the administration was contractually allowed to hold us that long. Worse, I have been to faculty meetings where the faculty was spoken to in a manner that would be considered abusive in any other profession. In some cases, I think teachers who are not treated like educated professionals live up to expectations.
ReplyDeleteBut you are right that we shouldn't make excuses, particularly when we move into the vein of student learning. We have an obligation to them. So how do we fend off the despair and maintain the high level of commitment? These are the things we need to talk about.
You have a lovely blog, and I look forward to reading more.