I saw an online headline in the past couple of days that read, “Teachers wonder: Why the scorn?” Had a similar question pop up from an old friend from high school on Facebook. It also came up up last election season when yet another old friend was running for some position in California (he’s a teacher by trade) and wanted to know why military people seemed so dismissive of “Teacher’s rights?”
I can’t say it’s the right answer or the only answer, but it is my answer: Military people teach every day. We train our subordinates, in and out of the classroom. We help them develop their careers. We act as mentors, counselors, teachers, friends, parental surrogates, and boss. We don’t think it’s all that big a deal. Yes, some people are better at teaching in a formal situation than others, but the passing on of information is not magic. Not in 2011 when people actually get degrees without interacting with a teacher other than via email or online forum.
One old friend argued that because she has more formal education than most lawyers, and certainly more than “most idiot Republican” politicians, she’s entitled to more money. I asked if she were teaching MORE as a result of that education? No. Was she teaching harder material as a result of that education? No. I asked her how her level of education effected how well she taught a standardized curriculum and she got downright pissy. “There is NO such thing as a standardized curriculum, if you’d ever REALLY taught, you’d know that.” I ignored that entirely and drove home my point: A teacher’s level of education has little to no effect on their ability to communicate a set collection of information to their students. Follow up questions, in-depth subject background, oh-by-the-way-you-might-find-this-bit-of-minutia-interesting, THOSE all benefit from you’re having an advanced degree IN THE SUBJECT YOU’RE TEACHING. Your advanced degrees make YOU a more informed person, but you’re not doing my kid any more good than the fresh faced youngster with a new BA and teaching certificate who may actually still CARE about teaching.
“Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have.” ~The Wizard of Oz to Scarecrow.
Unions: At this point, unions aren’t helping teachers one bit. When teachers’ unions were formed, they were necessary to ensure that teachers could make a living wage. And they ARE making a living wage. They don’t get paid a lot, in most cases, but they now have pay and benefits that are above the poverty line by a good margin. Good teachers, exceptional teachers, get paid exactly the same amount as really crappy teachers. Why? Unions. The unions are for equality, across the board, no matter how much you suck. They are a beast that must be fed and to be fed, they must get more for their union members so the union members can feed them more. They’re like many another bureaucracy, the initial reason for their existence has LONG passed, but they must justify their continuation and the way they do that is to insist that their members are some sort of victims, insist that only the union can keep the evil political machine at bay, only the union can “fix” what is broken.
The problem is that these days we’re all victims, we’re all not making enough, we’re all working harder for less money and teachers unions trying to argue that they’re still worse off than most of the rest of us, just isn’t flying. If you’ve got a salary AND insurance these days, you’re doing pretty damn well. We’re broke too, and for you to ask more of us while we’re still struggling to get back on our feet, is just damn insulting.
THAT’S why the scorn.