Teaching: The Most Noble Profession

[no_hypocrisy]

-snip-

It is a scary thing to imagine that we are driving out the very best teachers like her. If this happens, the situation for our future really does become bleak. I encouraged her to remember what drew her to education, to remember who she is and why she does this work that, right now, seems thankless, but which is, above all else, the key to a better world. I told her that one governor and a climate of rhetoric cannot be overturned and changed without people who think deeply and innovatively to solve problems, and if she stopped preparing those thinkers and change agents of the future, then who would do this great work? I asked her to remember people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi and Wangari Maathai and Aung San Suu Kyi and the forces arrayed against them that they struggled (and struggle) to topple against all odds.

-snip-

Teachers are the agents of the future. Will our world be populated by people ready and able to meet that future as creative and critical thinkers; as wise, compassionate and knowledgeable citizens; as skilled and motivated solutionaries within their professions? The answer to this question lies with teachers. More than any other profession, teaching has the power to create a healthy, just, and peaceful world (or not). It has the ability to seed our society with informed, caring and engaged citizens (or not). It has the capacity to inspire lifelong learning and a passion for knowledge, understanding, and innovation (or not). Is there anything more important than this?

-more-

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/04-0

[theaocp]

1. Thomas Jefferson sez

"The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests, and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance."

[chelsea0011]

2. If politicians were treated the same as teachers, one would only

use how much they were in session to gage how many hours they work. But then we would hear how much work they have to do outside house sessions and you can't gage work by just time in session. Just like teachers, who I suspect put more than 40 hours a week in day, week in and week out.

[elocs]

3. I've always believed that teaching should be a calling and not just a job.

I certainly had the skills and the education to have become a teacher, but I never felt it as a calling so I never considered it. Teachers deserve much more respect and compensation than they get in this country.

[ensho]

4. agree!!

they are way underpaid and undervalued

[treestar]

5. Why is this required?

Doctors are the most noble profession, they keep us alive. That's just as logical.

Why do people want their profession on a pedestal? Or why expect it?

[no_hypocrisy]

6. I believe the criteria to make it noble is the dedication and sacrifice involved

that makes it a calling more than a mere job or employment.

A teacher has marked education in the liberal arts and has the ability to teach a child how to read and understand what s/he has read. How to solve problems. How to think critically. How to ask questions. How to be an involved and responsible citizen. How to be a better person.

For what a teacher gives a child, the compensation should be doubled or tripled the contract rate, yet the teacher accepts whatever is collectively bargained for, sometimes for a salary that is less than a secretary in the private sector. A teacher defers earning what his/her education and skills can command on the open market and accepts less for the satisfaction of cultivating the next generation.

I have no doubt about my convictions. I went to a memorial service for a local teacher three weeks ago. He had been a teacher in the same school system since 1964 and taught until the day he died. He was also a coach who cared about not only his team but the players on the other teams. Adult graduates from all over the country returned to our small town to come before the mourners and spoke of the lessons of character this teacher gave them even in small nondescript ways. This man was the consummate teacher. He made a difference and made teaching a noble profession.

[theaocp]

7. Actually, without teachers

there would be no doctors. So, if doctors are the most noble, what does that make teachers?

[montanto]

9. Yes, and doctors get to bill for the hours that they work.

I, and most other full-time teachers in my district, get paid 6.6 hours per day. The days I only work 6.6 hours are the days that I am ill and don't feel like getting the rest of my work done. Teachers around here routinely work 1.5 to 3 hours a day for free. Try to get that out of any other "noble" profession. I've never had my doctor give me a free/reduced price consultation.

[Township75]

10. Doctors bill based on hours? I thought that was just lawyers.

The docs I know get paid by the patient and the service.

And cry me a freaking river about the number of hours you don't get compensated for. Teachers seem to think they are the only ones dealing with this. News flash: everyone that is salary is supposedly paid for a 40 hour week but works way more...and we dont' get summers off. Not "noble" enough?

[theaocp]

14. You're obviously NOT a teacher

and have an unhealthy addiction to making completely unfounded, propagandized assumptions. You have absolutely no concept of how unfairly teachers are compensated, but we come back and do our DAMN BEST every. day. Walk a mile in our shoes.

[Township75]

16. You obviously never worked in another profession.

Nothing uninformed about my statement. My family is filled with teachers, both of my parents for starters. They spew the same lines you just did. Saying you are unfairly compensated and therefore poor teachers is laughable...what do you think the rest of the country has been saying about their own jobs? How many people do you know feel they are compensated justifiably? But we all come back and do our best every day...try walking a mile in some other peoples' shoes and see how special your profession is. It's the same as everyone else's.

[theaocp]

18. I pity you and your family

for having to put up with you.

[Township75]

20. Typical.

Can't defend the statement so you stoop to this. What fantastic opportunity to educate someone, but you turn to this. This is "noble", right?

[theaocp]

23. Ok, I still feel pity for you, but I'll bite

You ARE uninformed, as you have given NO evidence of understanding for the unique requirements of teachers other than to offer tangential information you gleaned from your parents, whose opinion on the matter you obviously have no respect for. "Spew," indeed. People "laugh" at and about teachers and wouldn't last a DAY in my school. Correlation of teachers complaining to other people bitching about their jobs and their compensation is laughable. Where would the other jobs be without education?

As for your assessment that I have never worked in other professions, what can I say? Your ignorant assumptions astound me. I have worked both in this country and abroad in many different industries. Teaching and bringing critical thinking to students is what I decided on later in my life, so I went with it. So far, I'm pretty good at it and I STILL think teachers should be paid better for the umpteen hours we put in OUTSIDE of the time we actually spend with students. If other people do that too, I think they should be paid better as well. That does not negate my point about teachers and I hope you see that.

[Township75]

11. So who taught teachers?

And how did they teach doctors medicine? They knew medicine before doctors did?

[Bandit]

12. Some doctors are teachers and some teachers are doctors

but everybody had to learn from somebody.. No one knows everything about everything and the ones that are close to that probably teach.

[theaocp]

13. As people learn about medical procedures

they turn and TEACH such to others and the cycle repeats itself. There ya go. :)

[Township75]

15. So everyone is a teacher, and everyone is noble.

That makes more sense.

[theaocp]

19. By your snide response, I can extrapolate

that putting a band-aid with antibiotic ointment on a student's wound makes me a doctor. If I hadn't, they may have developed an infection and died! And don't forget putting out a grease fire on the stove. All the sudden, I'm a firefighter!

Forget it. You're right. No one's profession is worthy of accolades. Anyone could do anyone else's job and do it well. What was I thinking?

[Bandit]

8. I thought it was those soldiers over in Iraq and Afghanistan killing people

that kept us alive. Anyway doctors wouldn't know anything without teachers....

[TwilightGardener]

17. It's weird, I agree. In fact, I wouldn't attribute nobility to ANY paid job.

[RobinA]

21. You Said It

I'm a social worker. I've worked in a wide variety of settings, some pretty bad, some dangerous. I get paid crap, have a Masters, and I have to be there when it snows. It's not noble, it's a job. It has its own set of positives and negatives. I have a pretty good knack for it and it keeps me interested most of the time. Some days I feel like quitting on the spot, other days I feel like sobbing in the corner, some days something fulfilling actually happens. I obviously get something out of it, because I stay. It's not noble, it's what I do for a variety of complex reasons

[TwilightGardener]

24. Yep--I was a registered nurse. If they stopped paying me, I'd stop showing up.

I don't wipe butts and clean vomit and administer drugs and blood products and stay up all night for free. If I did, as a volunteer, THEN I'd be noble.

[YvonneCa]

22. IF this happens? "It is a scary thing to imagine that we are driving out the very best teachers ..

...like her. If this happens, the situation for our future really does become bleak."

No 'if' about it. This is happening, and has been for a while. It's to save money. Period. End of story.