Kristen Gyles | The dying respect for teachers

Here are a few of the many criticisms I have heard of teachers over time:

• They are not giving enough homework and the students are not getting enough practice.

• They are giving too much homework and students do not live only to do homework.

• They are not using the expensive textbooks on the booklist that the parents had to buy.

• They are using too many big textbooks and students can’t be carrying these heavy, overloaded bags to school every day.

• They are too harsh and need to show the students love and understanding.

• They are too soft so the students lack discipline.

• They are teaching too fast and are always racing to finish the syllabus.

• They are spending too long on some topics and they need to finish the syllabus,

You know you just aren’t very liked or respected when nothing you do or say is ever right. Teachers know this all too well because in the eyes of a significant portion of society, nothing they do is ever right. Teachers don’t seem to be very highly rated in Jamaica. Instead, they seem to be constantly fighting to defend the dying reputation of their profession.

Why is our perception of teachers so poor?

Hardly ever is it agreed that the teacher is actually doing what’s best, given the complexities of the local situation and given the multiplicity of interests at play. It is usually easier to just assume the teacher has no sense. This assumption typically precedes the unwarranted and overwhelming barrage of criticisms from parents, sometimes at PTA meetings and parent-teacher consultations, which will often be backed by the school’s administration which knows very well the old adage that “the customer is always right”.

FACE SAME ISSUE

This is not merely a local phenomenon. Teachers in most other countries appear to face the same issue.

Earlier this year, the acting education minister for Australia, Stuart Robert, came under fire after suggesting that the ‘bottom 10 per cent’ of teachers can’t read and write. He essentially blamed what he referred to as ‘dud’ teachers for students’ deteriorating performance in the international education benchmark tests.

Comments such as these formed the basis of a world-first study done by Nicole Mockler, associate professor of education at the University of Sydney, into how recurring public criticism and negative media commentary factored into a general disdain and lack of appreciation for teachers.

Her study looked at how school teachers have been portrayed in Australian print media from 1996 to 2020. She waded through over 65,000 newspaper articles and discovered that not only was teacher-bashing the norm across the various media outlets, but the work of teachers was consistently made out to be easy and there was a growing emphasis on ‘teacher quality’, which hardly focused on things like teaching methods, tools or the structure of the education system, but rather on the teachers themselves.

Again, nothing strange here. The recently published results of the annual Merrimack College Teacher Survey, which polls American teachers on the issues perceived to be affecting the teaching profession, reports that 44 per cent said they were likely to leave the profession within two years and only 46 per cent said they felt respected by the general public.

So, this actually appears to be a general issue with how we view teachers. Teachers across various countries are underappreciated. Why?

The truth is, the notion that teaching is just not that hard, is a popular one. In fact, the underlying assumption in some cases is that teachers are just not very bright and that is the real reason they find teaching so hard. Because, in reality, it’s easy peasy lemon squeezy. Many parents, for example, love to criticise the teacher’s inability to keep their children under control when they themselves as the parents can’t.

OBLIVIOUS

Others are utterly oblivious to the fact that their children are in fact, not little angels – at least not at school. In fact, these angel-morphing students are oftentimes the ones who come to school and throw words, throw things, and in rare cases attempt to throw each other. Of course, the teacher almost always wishes to throw out those students in turn, but can’t, and must demonstrate super-human levels of self-control.

With that said, another crippling assumption is that teachers are really just glorified babysitters for big kids and as such, they are not likely to be very competent in their technical subject areas. When students perform poorly in these areas, teachers therefore become the primary scapegoats.

The constant teacher-bashing is quickly learnt by the students, contributing to the declining interest in teaching as a career option.

Teacher migration may not only be a cry for better remuneration, but a cry for greater levels of respect. Of course, with a greater level of respect will come better remuneration, but, that’s another discussion.

We fail, as well, to realize that teacher migration is not the only issue at play contributing to the high-turnover rate of teachers. Some teachers migrate. Others throw in the towel and move on to less stressful careers where they will certainly be paid more. So, yes, some teachers are migrating for better pay, but even among teachers, there seems to be a dying interest in teaching as a profession.

It’s not too late to change the way we view and relate to teachers. We can start by changing the narrative to focus less on teachers and how they are never good enough, to focus on how efficient the system is in leveraging the skills and expertise they have to offer, and how we can improve that.

Kristen Gyles is a free-thinking public affairs opinionator. Send feedback to kristengyles@gmail.com.