So, here goes my first blog post. I’m hoping to share ideas and information, but also provide different points of view. While the content will be varied, today I’d like to begin with a subject close to my heart—the education of our young people.
We read about salary, class size, testing, standards, discipline…but what about professionalism? When did we stop treating teaching as a profession?
Imagine this scenario when you arrive at the hospital:
“Hello! Today I will be substituting for your nurse, Mrs. Baker, while she is out. I’ve taken the required workshop, so I think I have you covered; plus, she’s left copious notes. The shot will be tricky, but I’ve been practicing.”
This is certainly not meant to be unappreciative of the many substitutes who have come into our schools to be positive replacements for our teachers; however, would we value substitutes in other professions? In our police force? Doctors? Washer repair? Most restaurants wouldn’t even allow a substitute server. Yet, we allow substitutes to be responsible for teaching our young people with no qualifications to teach.
We’re not even just talking about substituting for a day; we have long term subs in our schools who are unqualified to teach. In other words, we don’t view teaching as a profession.
It doesn’t matter that we taught our own Johnny how to read any more than we successfully extracted glass out of our own foot one time. Teaching is as multi-faceted as any other profession and should be regarded as such.
What is the solution?
The same solution that you have for every other profession. If a teacher is out, you need a teacher to come in. Period. Each school or district should employ a sub list of teachers. These subs need to be paid decently as well. Which leads to the problem of paying classroom teachers enough to stay…
Designs on Life 