Teaching Soap-Box 2

Teachers, if you want respect, you have to earn it!

Workshops are not my favorite activities for many reasons. The biggest reason, though, is that I can’t stand to be in a room full of teachers. Teachers are notoriously the worst students. Every behavior that riles us when we are in the front of the room, we do when someone else is teaching. The workshop I attended today was relatively interesting and immediately relevant to my classroom. During the workshop I observed the following behaviors: texting, checking email, talking while the speaker was talking, grading papers, and stapling tests. I admit to talking and texting at points, but I sincerely try to be an enthusiastic participant in workshops simply because I know many others won’t be.

Another thing about teachers that frustrates me is hearing how little they understand of the content they teach. Today the presenter asked us to name our favorite landform. Someone said isthmus and the girl beside me said, “What’s that?” At another workshop the presenter asked us to find an average of results and a teacher in the room was using steps that were completely wrong and was getting loudly impatient with the rest of us who were getting a different answer (the right one). I know a lot of these skills are “use them or lose them” and I don’t judge most adults who have forgotten geography terms or long division. But, when your job is to explain these things to children, you have to know them!

It goes beyond workshops; I’ve heard lots of troubling stories about teachers lately.
• Not grading papers--for an entire quarter
• Showing movies in the middle of the day while they catch up on paperwork
• Swearing within earshot of students
• Having fistfights with other teachers
• Taking off more Fridays than they work

Teachers so often complain about being disrespected by their students, their administrations, or their students’ parents. We get angry when legislators make decisions affecting our time, our pay, or our workload—decisions that seem to minimize the value of our jobs. I’ve been a card-carrying member of the teacher’s union from day one and I am the first to champion teachers’ rights. But, at the risk of losing my NEA membership card, I have to exhort my fellow teachers to step up their games and earn their respect!