Teacher Professionalism
I work 5 days a week with 1 week off for Easter,
Thanksgiving, 2 weeks off for Christmas and I am not contracted to work from
June 12th until August 27th. I have holidays off that include President’s
Day, Martin Luther King Jr Day, and Veteran’s Day. My hours are 8:15 am until 3:45 pm with a 30
minute duty free lunch. I take my
students out to recess once a day for 15 minutes every day. I get 3 personal days off a year to use at my
own discretion. I am allowed 12 sick
days to attend to health issues that may arise for any member of my
family. I am given 2 bereavement days in
case of a family death.
I wear casual clothing that is suitable for the weather,
comfort and move ability. My students are in charge of cleaning up the
classroom at the end of each day, stacking chairs, picking up litter, cleaning
out cubbies, cleaning whiteboards, returning books to library, attending to
other errands as I see fit. I can
justify watching a video that is curriculum based and work on inputting grades
or correcting papers. I can use class
time to have students correct their own tests or their peers. My curriculum is laid out for me by the
publishing company and purchased by my district. Students are given Workbooks to use to show
understanding of the curriculum I am required to teach. I am given a class sets
of textbooks with scripted instruction to assist my teaching.
Parents come to visit my school on Open House where they are
surrounded by colorful drawing on the classroom walls, given hot dogs and
chips, and hosted by a friendly principal making sure everyone is having a
great time. Parents come back to school
for Talent Shows, Music Programs, Carnival nights, and other celebratory
events. Parents are asked to help with
lemonade sales, picture day, book drives, food drives and running the copy
machine. Even Parent Teacher Conferences
are held during Book Fairs, and adjacent to upcoming holidays. We all wish each other a great vacation and
talk about our plans for the week.
Students come to school with pajama bottoms, slippers and
bed head hair. I beg for homework to be
handed in daily but the consequences are weak if anything at all. I offer re-takes for tests, assignments, and
projects. Families go on vacations and I give them a packet of “fun pages” to
do while away.
ALL THIS AND I WONDER WHY I AM NOT RESPECTED?
Let’s beef this up!!!
What’s your plan?
I am officially excluding myself and all of you Wright Fellows
from this scenario. But, this is still
the norm, the public opinion. We cannot
have the respect and professionalism that will increase the quality of
teaching, according the Darling-Hammond, until this viewpoint is entirely
demolished. One bad dentist doesn’t
spoil my professional opinion of dentists, but we are starting from a very
negative vantage point. One bad teacher will!
Kim,
ReplyDeleteYou are so right! That really is what the public thinks. I liked your example of one bad dentist doesn't spoil my professional opinion of dentists. So why do people put all teachers into one category? I do think there are a lot of people that do respect teachers, but it's kind of like the news, you always hear all the bad things and very little good things, so I think we do need to keep that in mind :) It would be interesting to do a survey of what the public really thinks.
Kim, You are a professional!
ReplyDeleteI was wondering where you were going with this. I agree that we all need to step it up a profession notch or two or for some even more. But it gets confusing when you have all of what you explained going on every day. How do we get to the core of teaching and learning most of the time? I think we need to build trust in our buildings, work within PLCs, and observe/give feedback to improve everyone. Bill Gates said that we need to help all teachers be as good as the best.
This makes me think of Taylor Mali's poem, "What a Teacher Makes." in fact I watched the video of him reciting this poem after reading your post. We have to stand up to public misconceptions and say, "I make a difference!" but it's not just about saying, hey I'm a teacher. I am overworked and underpaid. While that is true we have to show the world what we do. We have to demonstrate the rigor and process we put our students through everyday. I agree! We are professionals. People think anyone can teach. That we are trained monkies following what the curriculum says, doing what the state says we have to do. They have striped us of our professionalism, our creativity and treat us like the hired help. If we want to be seen as something better, if we want to be better, we have to do better!!!
ReplyDeleteI think it goes much deeper than a negative public perception about he professionalism of teachers. I think our leaders and policy makers have that same perception. That is why our curriculum is scripted and laid out for us. We have allowed this to happen. Two of the last three student teachers I've seen couldn't teach without a script. I agree that if we want to change our bad public image we need to step up our game, but I also think we need to change how we recruit people into our profession and how we prepare them.
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