What do you do for a living?
When my husband and I answer this question, we get opposite reactions. I'm a freelance classical clarinetist, so it's likely the person asking the question has no idea how to respond, having never met a freelance musician. He's a high-school Spanish teacher, so it's likely the person asking the question feels no need to respond: Having been through high school, he considers himself an expert. I end up struggling to describe a strange hodge-podge lifestyle, while my husband barely gets a follow-up comment.
Oh.
As efforts to strip teachers of their rights gain headway across the Midwest, I'm starting to think that most Americans don't actually know any teachers. Growing up in an affluent suburb of Chicago, the only one I knew was my mother, who taught a first-year class of Hebrew at our synagogue. Public school teachers? My parents certainly didn't run with many in their crowd. In high school, as my classmates and I bandied about ideas about our future careers, law, medicine, business and the arts figured highly, but teaching was never mentioned.
Strange. We grew up in an excellent district led by powerful, influential mentors. We acknowledged their impact in graduation speeches and tearful goodbyes as we went on to attend top schools across the country. Yet their profession didn't figure as a player on the stage of our futures. It wasn't until I met my future husband that I started "seeing teachers," like the bumper stickers that implore drivers to "see motorcycles." I'm sure it had a lot to do with our immediate connection, but it was suddenly attractive, and even sexy, to talk to a young man who was interested in dedicating his life to helping kids learn. It was also exotic.
Among our crowd here in the Twin Cities, my husband is still an anomaly. Our corporate friends look at him and sigh enviously every summer, "How long do you get off again?" To which he always replies, "Hey, you can be a teacher. What's stopping you?" They change the subject, ask for a "teacher story."
If you don't hang out with teachers, these might be unfamiliar. Here's my favorite: At parent-teacher conferences a few years ago, a father showed up at my husband's table to talk about the progress of his twin boys in Spanish class. My husband frankly remarked that they weren't performing up to their abilities. The father laughed and replied, "That's probably my fault. I always told them foreign languages weren't worth a shit."
Hey, you can be a teacher too!
According to bloggers, media hosts and some government leaders across the country, it's a cake job with ridiculous benefits, endless vacations, and great hours. Over the radio I heard a Tea Party protester in Chattanooga read from his sign: "Fifty thousand unemployed Tennesseans would love to have your job." Interesting concept: current teachers — lazy, complaining, greedy — should bow out so that a new batch of more appreciative workers can be plugged into their places. Who would say such a thing if doctors were the subject in question, or pilots, or even musicians? My husband spent five years getting a teaching degree, four months studying abroad and two years getting a master's degree, and the public assumes he can be replaced like a cog in a machine.
What's stopping you from becoming a teacher?
I'll tell you. I know plenty of parents who tire of their teenagers in a matter of minutes. Try engaging a 15-year-old at 7:50 a.m. Now do it with 34 other 15-year-olds in the room. Now do it all day long.
My husband asked our corporate-type friends if they came home from work tired; not a one answered yes. They admitted that their jobs were neither mentally nor physically strenuous. They mentioned how much downtime they had built into their workday. By the time they get to work in the morning, my husband has already put in two hours. Those who mention that teachers are done by 2:30 p.m. seem to forget that they make up for it on the other side. He gets to sit down for a 30-minute lunch, but that's it. And he comes home drained — he'd go to bed earlier if it weren't for the endless grading of papers.
If it's so bad, then why is he doing it?
A week ago, my husband was interviewed by a student teacher. She asked, "What do you do to motivate yourself on the days where you just don't feel like teaching?"
"I don't have those days."
"No, you know, on the days where you don't want to go in to work. Those days."
"Sorry, but I don't have those days. Ask my students." Two of his students were in the room listening. They confirmed it.
I can confirm it too. His alarm goes off at hours any musician would call obscene. He's never pressed snooze, never stayed in bed moaning about going to work, hates calling in sick and would be totally fine if they added more days to the school year because there's not enough time to work everything in. He's in his 14th year. And he's teaching your kid.
Think you can hang with that sort of crowd? Then go ahead. What's stopping you?
Rena Kraut performs, writes, and lives in Minneapolis.
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Comments (6)
People who do not really know what teaching is all about really do not appreciate teachers.
My daughter is a teacher in an inner city Minneapolis elementary school (now with 20 years of seniority). She works long hard hours. Has numerous challenges with language, parents, and class sizes. Her salary is essentially frozen -- after 20 years she earns less than my office manager after 4 years of employment. She got an Masters on her own dime (and night school) -- then could not get a lane raise because of tight school budgets.
For those who think teaching is an "easy" profession, I would challenge them to spend one day in the classroom doing what the dedicated teachers do in our city, and society. It deserves commendation!
Your husband sounds like most of the teachers I know. Most of them truly like their jobs and work hard to provide quality instruction to their students. I was at a dinner party with one educator over the weekend, and he confessed that he hopes there is a dramatic, paradigm-altering shift in US primary education in the next 10 years.
One of the things we discussed was the fact that teaching is one of the few jobs in our work culture in which most of the workers see their job as a lifetime job. He felt that mindset was at least partially responsible for the resistance to change espoused by the teachers' unions and many teachers. We also discussed that although there is a wealth of data to show that children learn in many different ways, we continue to insist on trying to get every kid to, as he said, "fit into the same round hole," whether they are a square peg or a triangle or a giraffe.
He came to education in his 40s, after a couple of decades in an entirely unrelated industry, so he has opinions that don't necessarily conform to the standard model that seems to be issued as part of undergraduate teaching degrees. It was interesting to talk to him about these issues, because as a parent of elementary school kids, I view education issues from my perspective - hearing his perspective (and having him be more forthcoming about his feelings than many teachers I know) was helpful and forced me to think about education in ways I really haven't before.
There are lots of other professions that work long hours for similar pay...policemen, CNA's, and clergy come to mind...
I agree with your husband if you love what you do...then work is easy...
However teachers don't necessarily have a monopoly nor deserve a pedestal at the expense of other professions.
"However teachers don't necessarily have a monopoly nor deserve a pedestal at the expense of other professions."
Greg, I agree with you about the pedestal- as an educator I am not asking for special regard or treatment. However, the professions you mentioned as comparisons do not see themselves attacked or having their rights to collectively bargain taken away.
We are singled out for a different kind , and indeed different level, of demonization, as the author points out. In fact, since you brought up policeman, as public employees they are left out of the new Wisconsin legislation that has been so polarizing. I find my self asking 'Really?' I'm to blame? It's my fault budgets aren't balanced, that almost an entire generation of politicians have been unable to perform competently? It's my fault, and the fault of other public employees, that the top 400 wealthiest Americans possess as much wealth as the bottom 50% of Americans? It's my fault that states are "broke?"
Minnesota is not broke- nor is any other state. Their leaders just let a dominant few steal it all, and now they lack the courage to demand it back. Instead, they'll blame what's left of the middle class with one hand while they pick our pockets with the other.
As a public employee, I don't expect to be immune from criticism completely. I get it, I'm accountable to taxpayers and in fact welcome their scrutiny. What I refuse to accept is the irrational and asinine blame I am assigned for wanting to maintain my standard of living, while corporate bonuses stay at their obscene levels.
I'll keep teaching because I love it and because I chose it. Just, please people, realize who's actually responsible for our plight. Only those in acute denial can possibly believe it's public employees.
"My husband asked our corporate-type friends if they came home from work tired; not a one answered yes. They admitted that their jobs were neither mentally nor physically strenuous. They mentioned how much downtime they had built into their workday."
Rena:
So, you think you know the corporate world?
A lot of what you said regarding teachers rings true to me both as a former student and current parent in Minneapolis public schools. However, you lost me when you painted the picture of teachers against a high contrast background of corporate slackers.
Having worked many years in the corporate world, I am not able to identify with the work lives of your corporate friends. In 2009, my employer cut staff 25%, and the survivors accepted 10% pay cuts. Eventually business came back, and pay cuts ceased, but no one was rehired. Most wear multiple hats, and get to work early and stay late.
So, if you wouldn't mind identifying the employers of your corporate friends, we would all be interested.
I was a college professor for eleven years, and before that, I temped in companies throughout the Twin Cities for three years.
Despite the fact that a college professor's life looks easy on paper, I arrived at every Friday evening exhausted. If I went to a movie or other event, I invariably fell asleep. I can't imagine what it must be like for K-12 teachers, who have more students, longer classroom hours, and a wider range of abilities.
I can say without hesitation, though, that teaching is much harder than it looks. If you don't believe me, try it some time.
My experience as a temp in the corporate world showed me that executives don't work very hard. They shmooze with clients and attend meetings, but it's the administrative assistants who do the real work. Believe me, there's no time to play solitaire on your computer or gossip around the water cooler when you're teaching five classes a day and have only a half hour for lunch.