I once heard a teacher tell me that our education system is the Titanic, and we are rearranging the deck chairs.
Speaking solely about my home country, there are many gifted, devoted, and skilled teachers and faculty in the US education system. I have met thousands of them. They work all over the country, in districts of all types. They inspire, motivate, and percolate minds.
And some teachers stink. They really just do. I’ve met them, too. They are a ‘teacher’, therefore, they are done learning. You see, the pinnacle of education is to reach the place where you are so important that you can stop challenging yourself, the way you ask your students to challenge themselves. These teachers got into the job to get time off in the summer or to satiate the desire to do unto their students what their worst teachers did unto them.
I have heard that one big reason the best employees leave an organization is due to being around sub-par employees. I believe it. It is demoralizing to be in the same boat. It causes those best employees to question the judgment and motives of the leadership. And so many great teachers quit for other lines of work where they can have less stress, more pay, and be surrounded by greater quality of colleagues. They get disillusioned, overworked, and undersupported by the government, district, and families. So they go somewhere else where they can feel more valued. Or, even worse, they stay a teacher, lingering on, ineffective and doing the minimum, moaning about the students and the situation life has dealt them…
And as a country, most of us do not care about any of this. But hey! Let’s talk about American Idol!
For those of us who do care enough to take action, what are things we can do?
