A Really Long Post

I'm going to do something weird. I wrote a paper (more like an article) for my Teaching Writing class, and it's about something I've been thinking about during the last week, especially after some of the response I got to my opposition to Referendum 1 this week (you'll see what I mean.) I'm going to post it. I was going to abridge it, but I like it, and even if no one reads it all the way through, I'll feel good about it.

Those Who Can, Teach

The stereotype stems from second-hand memories of one room school houses and the old maid school teacher who runs a tight ship and wears a tight bun and keeps her mouth in a tight, unsmiling line. Bitter because she couldn’t get married, the teacher is so immersed in her books that she has no concept of love, life, humanity. The old adage rings in the collective conscious like a school bell: those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.
I didn’t realize until recently, during a discussion about a piece of education legislation with a friend, that some people still think of their school experience in terms of slates and potbellied stoves. “I’m not saying this is or will be you,” my friend said earnestly, “but most teachers (I know this is a stereotype, so don’t hate me) have never been married, and they don’t really know what it’s like to raise kids. They hear other teachers talking about what a bad idea something is and they just jump on the bandwagon without understanding what’s going on.”
His roommate chimed in. “I’m for [this legislation] for one reason: the teachers’ union is against it. My policy to always go against what the teachers want has served me well so far, and I don’t plan to change it.”
Aghast, I wondered why I was training to be a teacher if people whose children I would be teaching were already against me, were sure that my (and my colleagues’) view was less educated than theirs, were determined to undermine my efforts to create an educated population, were still willing to believe that teachers are nothing more than a group of bitter old maids who have no special abilities and therefore have no choice but to stand in front of a classroom. Tight lipped women who crave the attention of young minds because they don’t get it anywhere else, and who know nothing about children but that they must be taught to read and write. My future.
All commentary about how many teachers are mothers or male aside (I can only remember two teachers who came anywhere close to fitting my friend’s outdated description), teachers are, as a group, qualified, caring, informed individuals. Who knows more about children than teachers, who see hundreds of them every day and who are specially trained to work with the students—all kinds of students—who turn up in their classes?
Despite the all-too-apparent fact that, as any parent will tell you, children do not come with an instruction manual, teachers take classes to learn things (important ones) about the development of a child that many parents never even think to research, either because they believe that they need merely use a little trial and error until they unlock their innate parenting ability or because (more likely) they are simply busy and tired and hard working and don’t have the time. Thankfully, it’s part of a teacher’s training program to learn these things. They take classes about child or adolescent development; they study the reasons that teens are angsty or reckless (stupid) or emotional, and they learn the best ways to teach those still-developing brains. And the days of writing themes and diagramming sentences or lecturing from textbooks and writing equations for the students to copy are largely things long since past; teachers are trained to teach to “multiple intelligences” using Howard Gardner’s theories about the different ways people learn and the many ways that people can be smart. Despite the obligation teachers have to prepare their students to take standardized tests, most do not restrict their teaching to bubble sheets and multiple choice.
Teachers in training take multicultural education classes that help them to understand the problems facing some of their students and the challenges they will face teaching students who don’t speak English. While some parents’ solution is “Deport them!” good teachers—teachers who truly love their students regardless of their shape and size and color—know that every child deserves a chance to learn, the chance to be something special; this fact does not change in accordance with the place they or their parents were born. The problems associated with teaching to multiple cultures in a system that supports hegemony are not small and have no easy solutions, but presenting the elimination of the other cultures from the picture is neither helpful nor responsible (not only because it isn’t possible, but because it is unjust and unreasonable to expect one’s children to be educated while denying another child the same privilege). Teachers are taught, not to “deal” with multicultural students but how to give every student as much chance of success as possible. They know and understand the issues facing education as well as (and probably better than) most of the parents of their students, and for most it is more a matter of caring about the students than caring about their own interests.
Teachers are taught to teach to students with special needs, students who will appear in their classrooms, whether parents think that inclusive classrooms are a good idea or not. The government legislates that students with disabilities will be place in their least restrictive environment, and that doesn’t mean putting those students in a home or even putting them in a special education classroom. Additionally, not all students with disabilities are visibly or obviously disabled: teachers are taught ways to accommodate for students with learning disabilities of all kinds, ADD, visual and hearing impairment—anything that would prevent a student from functioning “normally” (an increasingly meaningless term) in the classroom.
In addition to being trained to give as much help as possible to every kind of student, teachers are trained to manage their classrooms effectively; although not every teacher is good at management, most parents are unaware of all of the work that goes into making a classroom run smoothly, of the procedures that must be in place for a class to function successfully, of the lesson planning that must consider everything from the needs of the students to the layout of the classroom.
Teaching, far from being a profession populated solely by those who could do nothing else, is not for the faint of heart. According to the U.S. Department of Education, “A 1996 study in North Carolina found that 17 percent of the state's teachers leave the profession after the first year in the classroom, 30 percent by the end of 3 years and 36 percent by 5 years” (http://www.ed.gov/). Teaching is hard work, and many teachers go out into the field without much support, largely because the need for teachers is so desperate in our country right now that there isn’t time for school to offer additional help and training. If those teaching are only “those who can’t,” how are they surviving in a field that is losing so many?
Teachers are, for many children, the first gateway into the world. English teachers open the doors of reading and writing, provide students with a sense of world citizenship and a voice with which they can express themselves; science teachers unlock the keys to the way the world works and reveal the unsolved mysteries left for the students to attempt to solve; history teachers give students a sense of where we come from and open the doors of possibility for the future; math teachers help students to make sense of their world and its complexities.
When I was in 8th grade, I took my parents to a conference with my science teacher. I got good grades in his class and other classes, and he asked what I wanted to do with my life. Even then, I knew that I wanted to be a teacher. “Oh no,” he said, “You need to be a doctor or lawyer or something.” As if those were more valuable professions. As if the higher salary I would be paid would mean that I was more educated. As if teaching the next generation of doctors and lawyers and scientists and politicians and writers would not be a worthwhile use of my time.
As if there would be another generation of doctors and lawyers and scientists without capable, hardworking teachers who choose to teach because they want to make a difference—and not because they can’t do anything else.