This documentary
noted some of the bad media coverage of the teaching profession. Despite the widespread concern explored in
the film that teachers are asked to do too much for too little, there was a
clip from Fox News Channel about teachers being greedy and just looking for
financial gain. Interesting.
In my
observation, that sort of media vilification is not uncommon. In our current culture, we’re always looking
for people to blame. It is the
government. It is the undocumented
workers. It is the lazy poor people who
are leeches on society. It is the
Muslims, the Mormons, the liberals, the secularists and any other group the
speaker/writer isn’t crazy about. There
is always someone to blame.
To me, a
very worrying trend is that these days Americans seem to really like scapegoats--though
we don’t use that term a lot. I guess it
feels better to make someone the villain instead of looking more deeply at a
complex problem. But I find that approach
to be emotionally immature and quite indulgent.
It is unproductive to sit around whining and venting angrily that someone
is the reason we have certain problems.
It would be much more productive to instead find creative solutions to
complex problems with many root causes. Finding
such solutions starts with trying to understand the complexity and various root
causes. But once a cause or two is
identified, it does no one any good to just sit around griping. Great nations are not composed of people who
simply sit around pointing fingers and stewing in their own anger. Great nations are composed of people who
think deeply and creatively to understand complexities and find solutions.
In the
case of concerns about our educational system, I think teachers are an easy
target for such scapegoating. They are
the most visible people in the failing system.
It is easy to pick on them instead of looking more deeply to figure out
why kids are not learning and graduating.
Violence, hunger, family problems, drugs, financial instability, lack of
classroom resources, crumbling school buildings. These are very pressing issues that undermine
our ability to educate our kids. But
they don’t have one easy source to blame.
They also don’t have a quick fix.
Quite
frankly, I think teachers are also an easy target due to gender. As we saw last year when Governor Walker
tried to eliminate most collective bargaining rights for employees of the state
of Wisconsin, in the brutal economy most of us endure, there is not a lot of
sympathy for public employees in the base case.
Teachers as a group seem to be particularly disliked. But it seems interesting that we don’t seem
to lump police and fire fighters in for such ill-will even though they are
government workers too. As a society, we
tend to admire them. They risk their
lives for others. (In truth, many
teachers do the same these days.) However,
I don’t think it is any coincidence that we beat up on a profession comprised
mostly of women, and we salute (sometimes literally) professions where men
dominate.
This
disparate treatment has been most clear to me in times of crisis. When there have been horrific school
shootings, the media doesn’t focus that much on the heroism of the teachers who
try to save their students’ lives. Some
of them have used their own bodies as shields to protect their students, but
that doesn’t get a lot of attention. Yet,
there seems to be a lot more coverage when a police officer or firefighter does
something heroic. I’m not saying we
shouldn’t praise the police and firefighters, but we need to have a less
stifled, more expansive view of heroism.
We should be praising the teachers too.
During
9/11, I remember hearing about teachers at schools near Ground Zero in
Manhattan where there was concern buildings might tumble and crush their
campuses. Those teachers apparently
walked kids calmly to safety. What
bravery! Many of us would have wanted to
run for our lives, not keep a frantic group of kids together to get them to
safety. But in the days, weeks and even
years afterwards, I never heard those stories again. There was a lot of media coverage of the fire
fighters and police however. I certainly
respect those fine individuals, but why didn’t we hear more about the brave
teachers?
My own
belief is that it is rooted in our cultural beliefs about heroism and
honor. We admire it in men. It is not as noteworthy in women. The assumption is that women are supposed to
sacrifice themselves for children. They
don’t get a lot of respect in the base case, it is easy to find fault in them, but
not praise their heroism.
The
following article is a recent example of the extreme disrespect one women in
the school system had to endure. I don’t
think this was an aberrational incident.
But it went viral because someone on the bus thought to record what
happened one day.
Luke 20:13
“‘What will I do?’ the owner asked himself. ‘I know! I’ll
send my cherished son. Surely they will respect him.’”
1 Thessalonians
5:13
Show them great respect and wholehearted love because of their work. And live peacefully with each other.
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