A reader writes for our help.
I would say to these students: No one can promise you will land a job, not in this or any other field, but I can promise you that teaching is the most exciting, rewarding, and important job you will ever have. It will change your life, and you all have the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of your students.
What would you say to them?
I wrote to the celebrities [who are in “Teachers Rock”], and I hope all our messages make a difference. I have a pressing question that I hoped to have answered for myself by now, but I’m still searching. In less than 2 weeks I’ll be standing in front of 26 20-somethings who are preparing to be teachers. They’ll be taking at least 36 units of education courses over at least 2 years, completing countless hours of student teaching, passing several standardized tests, and expecting to make a positive difference in children’s lives. They’ll also be expecting to get a teaching job and keep it. Many readers of this blog must be in a similar place. What shall we say to these hopeful, idealistic, young people?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I would like to tell them that not only are they there for the kids, but they have a responsibility to their profession; now more than ever. Teaching is a society building profession but it is not enough any more to be a great classroom teacher, although that is the best part of the profession. They must be aware of and research not just pedagogy, classroom management and how to provide 157 pencils a week, but also how to grow and protect the profession so that in 10, 15, 20 years they still have one! We all expect ourselves to grow as classroom teachers, to strive for improvement, to tweak our lessons and sometimes just plain start all over again with them. Perhaps we need a career path for teachers in educational activism or Educational Professional Management so that we can prepare teachers to take care of our profession full time, from within, so that some of these appointed positions, like Sec. of Education can be a career goal for some of us. Understanding the political, social and state pressures on public education would help teachers who choose this career path to advocate, guide and fight from within while our professional organizations battle from outside. Non-profits have learned this. Business has learned this. The teacher training programs need more classes in the social and political challenges teachers will face; coming out of the classroom and out of isolation to work together is very new for some and while current issues are discussed, their emphasis should be not on just being aware of these issues, but our responsibility to resolve them and how individual teachers can contribute. What Diane and others like her do need to be a solid and COMMON career path, this blog shows the power we have!
It will take time, years and a great deal of effort. Keeping us busy fighting for our jobs has destroyed our ability to grow our profession, like snipers who keep everyone terrified because you never know where the next attack will come from.
I would also tell them that we need to share and collaborate and work together and develop procedures and tools to make the enormous amount of paperwork, grading and documenting more efficient, consistent and accurate. An attractive and functional classroom is important but spending hours decorating your classroom to make it pretty and coordinated will not make up for spending 13-14 hour days in it. We also need to make ourselves aware of all the federal rules and laws that could help us. OSHA, EPA and local fire code MUST respond to reports of unsafe or injurious conditions. Even anonymous ones! Science teachers often do not even realize the safety laws that have specific requirements for them that can be used to advantage; the teachers OR the administrations if they want to get rid of you! Teacher education programs don’t teach these consistently, so new teachers will have to do some research. Also on infection control, handling physically aggressive or combative students, on the job injuries etc.
Until we have better professional development, teachers will have to protect themselves. Some parts of the country have this, where I work our local organizations do little.
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I would say — to these students who have heard the ‘call’ and chosen to embrace the life of the ‘response’ — “Congratulations. You have entered the profession during a time that will be remembered as the most turbulent and transformative in the history of the institution. Once the tireless efforts of impassioned colleagues, educators and activists, have urged the national discourse on education to its apogee, you will help with your daily efforts to reframe a system’s return to its highest ideals: to prepare learners, rather than test takers; to foster citizenship, rather than competition; and to encourage dreamers, rather than drones.
“In the first decade of the 21st century, thoughtful educators began to ask crucial questions about the purposes and the practices of our current educational institutions; in the second we have started to find answers. These answers have come, in some cases, from the design of innovative solutions to challenges we’ve never had to face; in others, from a return to a rich tradition of student-centered principles long obscured by what James Nehring refers to as “outdated policy changes that have calcified into conventions.” Though public debate about ‘accountability’ and ‘achievement’ — fostered by politicians, pundits, and wonks, and sponsored by private and corporate interests — have often obscured this process of discovery, that too shall pass and we will return to the vision and the dream that, in all likelihood, inspired you to make this choice to join the profession. Thank you for honoring that inspiration, for making that choice, and for joining us to help create a better world for children, their families, and our future.”
And then I’d probably call for a coffee break.
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I just had this conversation with my niece at dinner Sunday. She is entering her senior year of high school and is looking at colleges for history education. I told her she should pursue what inspires her, but I don’t know what the field will look like when she is ready to enter. I didn’t want to destroy her young dream, but what could I say?
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I would say, “Have a good Plan B.”
I’ve seen good, young teachers laid off the past two years. Some have been recalled.
I’ve also seen a steady stream of student teachers in our building. I do not envy them.
As one who taught, got out, then got back in, I know that it can be a real struggle to “make it” in this profession. Yes, there are rewards. I am finally reaping those rewards, but there were some very difficult, lean times along the way.
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Be cognizant of the political climate. It’s more important now than it has ever been. Education does involve politics. Don’t let anyone else tell you differently. It’s o.k. to be politically involved. Join a union and get involved in making things better.
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Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
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Let me see,
I do believe,
it’s Bette Davis
in “All About Eve.”
Well done.
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I would tell them that the deepest, most satisfying reward may come years later when a student comes back to them and says, “You made a big difference in my life.” Teach every individual student so that you make that difference in their life. Help them to both believe in and expect much from themselves all the while instructing them in whatever content you teach. The reward will be yours, but be patient. It will be worth the wait!
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