Just Sayin'

Why is it that people seem to believe that teaching — the acts, the skills, the theories, the practices, the stresses, the importance of the outcomes — can be taken for granted? That teachers and schools can be blamed for any number of student, parental, societal, and national failures but that teachers and schools don’t deserve much respect? That “if you can’t do, you teach”?

I mean, WHAT?!?!!

That “if you’re alive and breathing, you can teach”? That all you need is content knowledge and somehow that translates into knowledge of how to help other people develop fruitful and lasting and life-changing relationships with that content? That being a teacher can’t be as life-saving as being a doctor?

It’s like mothering. We all assume that, if you’re female and have a baby, you somehow know how to be a good mother. You know how to love, how to care, how to sacrifice yourself AND how to care for yourself so you can get right back in there when others need you, how to set limits and survive pushback, how to be hard (about a child’s safety, for example) and soft (about family members’ needs, for example) whenever it’s appropriate. For them.

These jobs — mothering, teaching — are complex and intense, and

they do not come naturally just because you’re alive.

They are at the very least EXTREMELY EMOTIONALLY TAXING. When you’re doing your job well, you take any number of emotional hits — from people you care deeply about.

This is not easy work. And who is overtly prepared to be a rock star developmental partner?!? Teaching, helping people grow, requires discipline, and training, and ongoing empathic and effective support. It requires solid boundaries, the ability to mirror, the muscle to not take things personally and to decide whether and how to be used, the willingness to counter one’s internal critic and get the care one needs. It requires a commitment to personal growth and development. And it deserves

ebullient respect.

From everyone.

Just sayin’.