Just a Teacher

We in education live in interesting times. We are easy political pawns as the general public looks for answers as to where their money goes.  We're just teachers. Plenty has been written about the overpaid and underworked teachers in public education.  Plenty has been written to refute those misguided notions.  More should be written detailing the salaries when comparing similar years of experience and education and certifications. Unfortunately, it is often met with scorn and resentment and disbelief. I have had these conversations with friends, family, and neighbors, but that's not what this is.

It's easy to push educators. If we push back, we don't care about the children.  We've heard it all before.  We're just teachers.  We work part time. We want full time pay. We have too many benefits provided to us.  Our underfunded pension system is sucking money from the system.  We don't have enough accountability.  We are not making our students competitive with the rest of the world.  I can argue each of those points, but that's not what this is.

So what does it mean to be just a teacher? It means we make a difference in the lives of the students placed in front of us. Good, bad, or indifferent, we impact those lives.  Through our words and actions, those students feel worth, pride, shame, success, failure, satisfaction, pain, and joy.  We hold that power.  To be just a teacher is to understand that we are no longer the keeper of the information.  It is up to us to determine the path that a student needs to travel to gain the experiences in a field for which you already have expertise. It is up to us to inspire students to want to learn more than we planned.  We have the ability - the responsibility - to ensure that the students we teach have the tools and desire to become bigger and brighter than we ever hoped to be.

Sure, you're just a teacher. Think back to the people who made you who you are today.  The teachers on that list - and you'll be hard pressed to find the individual who claims to have gotten where they are without the inspiration of at least one teacher - are sure to have something in common.  Those teachers represented more than a courier of information.  They were friends and mentors and role models.  They were counselors and financial advisors and motivational speakers. They were parents and grandparents and religious leaders and coaches. So yeah, we're just a teacher, and that's all part of it.  It's part of the job, and quite frankly, it's the part of the job we love, and it's the part of the job that makes us an easy target because we're so unwilling to allow the pain we feel in our personal lives to break down the experiences we're giving our students.  Every teacher who inspires is just a teacher.  For that reason, I'm proud to be just a teacher.

If you're just a teacher, too, I'd love to hear from you. Leave your comment here or use #JustaTeacher to let the world know what being just a teacher means to you.




(Picture above taken from: http://www.spidvid.com/blog/2011/02/multiple-video-projects-time/)