Repeating History
I recently started reading the book The Teacher Wars by Dana Goldstein. I think the most disturbing thing about the first five chapters of the book was how much I could see the old stigmas surrounding the teaching profession gnawing at the edges of our own modern system of education in the United States. In this overview of the history of teaching, there were mass amounts of debates about the teachers themselves. There were debates of gender, race, and quality. Many teachers for too many decades were under qualified, under paid, and overworked. Here's the scary part: we still are.The world has always found issues with the idea of women as teachers. I wouldn't consider myself a radical feminist or even a radical libral, but I do believe in equality. Teaching is dominated by women because it is thought that we care more. That isn't true. I've seen men more excited to teach 5th graders than women to teach 6th graders. I've seen the passion that can come from a man when he talked about taking care of the kids in his class. I've also seen the same from women, but this is considered normal because we give birth.
Race was constantly brought up because freed black slaves could, in no way, be any smarter than white people. To be a black woman? Forget it. Teachers can be great no matter their color. The best teachers are the best because of the way they care about kids and the way they show them how great they can be.
We are still fighting the federal government to teach kids what they are completely capable of knowing. Walking into a sixth grade classroom, one can be astonished what those kids are capable of despite their lack of math textbooks. Kids can be surprisingly compassionate, understanding, and intelligent if just given the right resources and teacher who cares.
The other issue that has been an issue since the 1800's is that of teacher pay. Teachers are still paid less than that of an office worker in a cubical doing HR and payroll. Many teachers live in low income housing and yet these are the people that are supposed to inspire kids to cure cancer. The great literary minds of the world, the great mathematicians, and the great businessmen are being taught by someone with a Bachelors getting underpaid because as a culture we cannot rise above the history of our past.Reading Goldstein's book hurt me a lot as a future teacher to see how much Americans have refused to progress.
Want to check out more about this? The Teacher Wars is available at most bookstores and on Amazon.
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