each of us has earned certification and has to continually update skills and knowledge. we belong to professional organizations like the NEA.
to even survive as a teacher, let alone do a good job, one needs a vast store of subject specific content knowledge plus the ability to seamlessly integrate that knowledge with classroom management techniques in dynamic social environments.
it is not a job that that one can do without professional training.
teachers deserve the respect shown to other professionals and they deserve to be paid like other professionals too. if we were paid well, we would be shown respect. that is the sign of value in america.
but teachers are legion. there are many of us in every community. to pay us what we are worth would dig deep into the incomes of other professionals.
it is much easier and cheaper to believe that teachers have a "calling" or that they are teaching because they failed to thrive in the real world of competition. low value workers.
to demonstrate this, people's expectations (fed by the media) of teachers and legislation like NCLB or race to the top are designed be unattainable reinforcing the notion that teachers aren't up to snuff.
professional evaluations for teachers must not be valid since schools are such failures. perhaps teachers ought to be judged by the success of their students? again, a measurement beyond the control of teachers.
then it is easy to justify crappy pay and overloaded classrooms. and it becomes easy to dump the experienced, better paid teacher for the novice, who will work for less.
teaching is a profession, one that i am proud to belong to. but, in america, much has been invested to make sure we are not taken seriously.
if we were allowed to really do our jobs our students would threaten the status-quo. they would knock the king off of the mountain. they would see that the emperor is naked. so we teachers are saddled with the curse of cassandra.
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