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Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > May > 03 > Entry
It’s easy to be a teacher
There was bit of a debate in the comments under my post last week about corporate recruiters who look to steal teachers away for other jobs.
The argument centered around whether teachers are really overworked and underpaid. After all, teachers’ workdays end in mid-afternoon, they get the summer off, even the lowest paid make at least a livable wage and in many cases they have generous retirement and health benefits.
That sounds pretty good to someone in a normal job who gets two or three weeks off a year, routinely stays past quitting time and can’t afford to even think about retiring.
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof stirred up some blog debate this week by arguing against certification of teachers, essentially saying anyone can be a teacher. (For a rebuttal, check out blogger Jenny D’s response.)
So is it true that teaching is an easy job? Perhaps it is easy — to be a bad teacher.
If you really didn’t care whether students learned or not, I suppose teaching could be easy. You could just follow the textbook, hand out a few worksheets, give a multiple choice test and burn rubber in the parking lot at 2:40 p.m. And to be sure, most of us probably met one of these teachers along the way.
But most teachers just aren’t like that.
Conscientious teachers get to work early and leave late. They create challenging assignments, which makes for long hours of grading. They meet students outside of class. They read the latest news and research in their subject areas and work toward more advanced degrees. They constantly refine their teaching strategies and classroom management techniques.
They also coach athletic teams, moderate clubs, run the prom, head academic departments, chair important committees, coordinate standardized testing and plan pep rallies. If the most dedicated teachers calculated a true hourly wage, we might find they were shockingly low paid.
Can anyone be a teacher? Let me leave you with this story.
Several years back I followed around a Dayton middle school student for a day. The young man was very bright, an A student, but also quiet and a little shy. The teacher I remember most that day was his math teacher. He was a good man, a former professional — accountant, I think — who just felt he should do more with his life than sit in a cubicle. This was a quiet, thoughtful guy who just thought his life would have more meaning as a teacher.
And he really cared for the student I was tailing that day. They got together twice during free periods to work one-on-one. And during math class, the teacher gravitated toward my student, giving him extra attention. That was for good reason — the rest of the class was out of control.
As the bell rang, several kids were out of their seats, clowning around, mostly picking on a boisterous heavy-set boy. The teacher repeatedly asked them to take their seats, and they promptly ignored him. It took a painful 15 minutes before most of the kids were finally seated — enough so he could start the lesson now that a quarter of the class period had been wasted.
Throughout the period, kids interrupted, disrupted and and distracted the class. But the teacher was just powerless to stop them. He seemed to have neither the personality for, nor any good ideas how to go about, leading this group.
This poor guy’s heart was in the right place and he certainly had the content knowledge research says is the key ingredient in good teaching. I got the feeling that with a training and experience, he could do fine.
So is it easy to be a teacher? And is teacher training and certification necessary if you already have content knowlege? Tell me what you think.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Teaching and Learning
Comments
By Ms Cornelius
May 3, 2006 5:36 PM | Link to this
I had a math teacher like the one you described when I was in high school. As a matter of fact, I had a chemistry teacher like that, too. Both had become teachers after leaving the business world. It’s so difficult to find math and science teachers that I think many schools aren’t very picky about the ability to teach— they’re just looking for content knowledge. I don’t remember this strategy working in my case— the classes were too chaotic. Teaching sounds like a good gig— and I appreciate your deflation of those myths about how our day is over at 2 and so on. Remember that those summers “off” are unpaid, please, and that we get no paid vacation days. I’m not too sure that the certification process ensures a more competent teacher than alternative routes, though. Heresy, I know.By Oldprof
May 3, 2006 4:56 PM | Link to this
Kristof identifies one shortcoming: schools of education are, in fact, not successful in teaching people how to be good teachers—but then he bites the head off his own intelligence by misrepresenting options. Jenny D. conflates the problem by citing the muddled research that may or may not support a relationship between teacher longevity and effectiveness. We might note that teachers were generally effective in the 1950s, compared to today, and there were two main factors in their comparative success. (1) Teachers were unquestioned arbiters in the classroom, their discipline was absolute. In fact, it often crossed the line into abuse—a renaissance that we should not encourage, but we should get back to the notion that teachers are not to be contradicted by parents and community leaders. (2) Education degrees in the 50s consisted of lots of work in traditional academic courses and very little in education, even including the internship. Now, the teacher gets little in the way of specific math, language, science, or arts coursework. Back then, teachers learned to teach from the mentoring of experienced faculty in the schools—Scott’s retiring, ineffective teacher here would once have gone to other teachers and the principle for guidance in classroom discipline. This system of content-from-college, technique-from-practitioners is now topsy turvy; now there are not enough career teachers to mentor all of the new faculty, and now the college work, as noted, is all abstract theory with a little classroom technique stirred in for spice. All in all, I applaud Kristof for one thing: he’s not wedded to particular theories or ideologies, he’s trying to figure out what works. But I fear he lacks historical perspective.By micheleataft
May 3, 2006 4:30 PM | Link to this
Scott, It’s disappointing to see you repeat the tired concept that teachers stop working in the mid-afternoon and have summers off. Sure, a teacher may leave school at 3:00, but she usually spends a couple of hours at home correcting papers and planning lessons. And, most teachers work at other jobs during the summer (some even teach summer school) to supplement their incomes. Can’t we move beyond this non-issue? Michele at AFTBy Mary
May 3, 2006 3:30 PM | Link to this
Dave’s comments about classroom management and content knowledge were interesting. I would say classroom management training is less critical in certain environments when the adults including parents, teachers, principals and superintendents are unified that discipline will be maintained. For some students, I believe content knowledge and passion for content, rather than pedagogy or classroom management, are much more critical. I do not think Jenny D’s comments reflect what I think Kristoff was saying in that regard. What an opportunity it is for students to learn from someone with experience in a field. It brings the importance of education to life. For older students particularly, I believe there could be a successful blend of education majors and people experienced in various fields, not necessarily celebrities, working together. Protecting education major turf is counterproductive to the students and education. A few weeks ago, USA Today had an editorial about how teachers spurn their talented coworkers entering from other backgrounds. It sort of reminds me of the experiences I had with uniformed military and government civilian working side by side in various jobs. The success depended on mutual respect and attitudes often set by the civilian and military leadership.By Dave
May 3, 2006 8:37 AM | Link to this
To be a great teacher, you need both classroom management and content knowledge. Given a choice, I’ll take the person who can manage the classroom. But that gives a misleading picture, because most teacher training does NOT teach classroom management — or at least not in the 3 states I know the best. If a professional tries to become a high school teacher, the state will insist they study learning theory and how to teach elementary students to read, because that’s what the folks who run the certification programs understand. Most of them have never taught below college, and have no idea the skills really required. That’s a major reason so many teachers leave the profession — they work very hard, but fail because they were not given the skills to succeed.