Art or Profession?

While obtaining both my bachelor's and master's degree the question came up time and time again: "Is teaching an art or profession?" My initial thought is always "both" but even I realize that's a cop-out and non-committed answer. So let's think about this for a moment. 

• Do teachers have to obtain a degree in order to gain employment? - Yes
• Do teachers have to obtain certification in order to gain employment? - Yes
• During their careers, are teachers expected to maintain their certification? - Yes
• Do teachers have contractual obligations and expectations? - Yes
• Are teachers expected to attend professional development and continue to grow as educators? - Yes

This is all looking like compelling evidence that teaching is a profession, right? Well lets keep going. Recently our BOE and teacher's union completed contract negotiations with some of the below highlights.

• 1% increase in the overall pay-scale
• Adjustment to salaries for additional education (taking classes beyond bachelor's degree)
• Moving to appropriate place on longevity scale (years of tenure within district)
• Professional dress

Why were all of these necessary? Well for starters, Wichita Public School teachers went four years without an increase in pay - all salaries were frozen. Teachers were expected continue coming to work everyday, continue taking professional development course in order to maintain their certification all without any additional compensation (not even to adjust for inflation.) I just can't see how teachers were being treated as professionals in this instance. Mandates kept coming for teachers to increase the rigor of their lessons yet were not being compensated, either monetarily or with extra time in the work day, to make the changes in their teaching. Morale has been at an all-time low among the teachers in our district. And can you blame teachers? Cost of living continues to increase yet we are not being compensated for what we do day in and day out - change the future of our country by educating today's children.

But, there is that last bullet point...the one about "professional dress." When I think about an artist (one who makes money for creating art) I think sloppy jeans, old tshirts, a disorganized work space and a very casual attitude toward work. And the fact that verbiage about professional dress has to be added to a teacher's contract makes me see some teachers as artists rather than professionals. I can walk down the hallways of any school in our district and see teachers in wind pants and tshirts (teachers other than P.E. teachers that is), "professionals" in jeans and tshirts and still others wearing cargo shorts and hoodies. Now, anyone that knows me knows that I own my fair share of band tshirts, cargo shorts, workout clothes and jeans but I don't wear them at work. I view myself as a professional so I wear slacks, khakis and blouses or sweaters to work (aside from specially designated "spirit day") so that when I encounter others they will immediately get the impression that I take myself and my job seriously. It just seems to me that if you want others to take you seriously as a professional, you need to present yourself that way. (If my high school self saw me today at work, she'd be so embarrassed!) 

So, this is a call to action to all teachers. It doesn't take any more money to purchase a couple of pairs of pants for work as it does to buy a couple of pairs of jeans. And yes, I fully support teachers wearing school shirts, but wear it with a pair of chinos. If we want the world to take us seriously as professionals, to listen to our cries that we're don't have the resources available to educate today's children they way we'd like and to throw us some support when it comes to getting those resources (monetary or otherwise) then it's time we start making sure the world actually sees us as professionals. 

Image courtesy of Eric Jusino and Creative Commons

Seeing the Final Product

Well I've "moved up" to high school this year as a data leader, which means I help staff members use classroom and assessment data to drive instruction (that's the hope anyway.) I have always worked in middle school so I've never been able to see "the end product" with my students. Until this year that is. I am at the high school right next door to the middle school where I had my first teaching job and this year's seniors are my last group of sixth graders from "across the lot." It has been very exciting for me to see so many of my former students these last few days and sad to see many of them not here because they have already decided school isn't "the way to go." When I taught "across the lot" I had all of the ESOL students as soon as they left the Newcomers' program. I have been impressed and awed by the development of so many of my former students' language skills - they ROCK! I've been really surprised and flattered by the number of students that not only remember my name but also have memories from my class that they've been wanting to tell me. These are SENIORS people and that was six years ago, which in "teen-aged years" is practically a lifetime! 

Some of my favorites have been memories of the hissing cockroaches I had in my classroom, the time that a student tried to pull the tail off of my leopard gecko, how much they loved "Science in a Box" days, using technology in class "almost every day" and various memories of my former partner teacher and I goofing off in the hallways. One story in particular stuck with me. A little girl that spoke very basic English in 6th grade (Vietnamese is her native language) walked up to me in the hallway and said "I remember you. You were my very first science teacher in the United States and your class was so interesting. You had those hissing bugs and gross lizards, but I loved your class anyway because we got to do the work with our hands, which helped because I didn't speak English very well yet. And my friends from that class were just talking the other day about how you said that when you got your diploma book at graduation there was a problem and no one got their diplomas that year. You had to go back to the school later to get them. Some of my friends are wondering if the same thing is going to happen to us. We think that would be funny if it did!" It was such a small story that I told to my students yet six years later there is a small group of students that remembers it. It's astounds me everyday the connections we make with our students and the impact on their lives we have. I don't know why they remembered that particular story, but it made me feel so very important that they would pay attention to such a little thing like that and reminds me again of the important role we as educators play in our students' lives. 

So with this in mind, remember that your students really are listening when you speak and that you play a HUGE role in their lives - both educationally and otherwise. 

Photo courtesy of iStock