Living in the Real World

A colleague and I were talking last night and a familiar refrain came up. Now we, as teachers are "living in the real world" where we can be fired at whim like everyone else. Once upon a time, as he said, "you became a teacher, you died a teacher." I remember the resentment of my friends and relatives about this -- what right did I have to the job security I had.

I have a bold question to ask all of you -- the one person and cat who read this blog. Who comprises the economies we speak of? Are we discussing economies which are built by people and which function or are we discussing ones in which other beings exist? I don't know how an all cat economy would exist. I suspect that cats would really fight hard for tenure, but Larry and Bernie are immersed in aviary discussions at the moment, and I don't want to disturb them. Improving their woodpecker imitations, I think, is the goal of the day, so that they might get a better view of the very languid birds who sit on our fire escape between their tree nibbles. It's all about the view, as there is no conquest happening here, thanks to the human peacekeeping squad.

That's how those woodpeckers stay alive, by the way, as Bernie would undoubtedly fly right at them, left on th street. Larry, on the other hand, doesn't have any killer instinct in him now. If he had been left untouched by me -- the Larry I met years ago would certainly have taken out whatever birds remained and he and Bernie would've been a team as they are now, and as he and Henry were on the streets, and a nearly dead pair, too. I got them just in time. Bernie, too was on his last legs, feisty though he was. Cats don't live very long, left to fend on the streets. So, I suspect all those who become pets know that it's better living the way things are now, than in the "real world," artificial as it might be. Bernie looks like a pasha and Larry like a prince. They beam love at me as they breathe.

I don't know many humans who can truly survive an economy as harsh as what they call, the "real world." Most businesses have systems for firing people -- they, at least, give you a warning, a chance to improve, an "action plan" -- I've heard of this at Verizon, and I'm sure it exists in other places. I am sure there are businesses that just fire you without warning, and this is inhumane. When thousands of people are let go immediately, it hurts our economy, and it literally destroys lives. It is akin to killing those people and there should be laws against it and jail punishment for it. You cannot enter into a contract with someone where you will provide them with sustenance if they complete a service and then terminate that contract without warning. You must give people REASONABLE notice. Two weeks is not it. Who are we as human beings that we let other human beings just waste in front of us? What gives us the right to put the death sentence to people because they have failed us? So they failed us? So what? We failed them, to in that we didn't properly prepare them for what was ahead of them. And we didn't select a good fit for the position. So, let's set things up so they can leave in a humane way and so we don't make the same mistake again.

There are also some professions that require stability. One reason it was useful for a teacher to know he or she was coming back the following year was so that she or he could plan ahead for the following year. Also, the teacher could develop skills in a grade level/set of grade levels and become a part of a school. I went to a private school in which some of the teachers had been teaching a certain grade for many years and they really knew their material. At the public school I went to, also, there were some teachers famous for the electives they taught for many years and I couldn't wait to take them. I guess that's not something we want to pass on to our grandchildren.

It takes a long time to develop a course into something worth waiting for -- you can put together a course quickly. But, you won't have the connections between the lessons, the intricate details, the thorough research, the anecdotes, the incidental notes, the amazing ideas, the pictures from your visits to museums that are related -- the life experience that will fill the course and make it great -- that takes time. And frankly, you won't be that great a teacher until you've been teaching for five years or so. Sure, you'll be pretty good. Check back in with yourself in your fifth year. You'll feel the difference.

Or maybe not. Maybe this has all been an illusion. Maybe some doctors are amazing from the start and nothing changes with time. No actor grows. No child develops.

I've always felt that teachers ought to be mentored the first five years and not work alone. But, what do I know.

But, here's another thought about the real world.

There are all kinds of professions in the real world and all kinds of people. And some of the people in the real world CANNOT survive in a survival of the fittest kind of profession and teaching was supposed to be one of the places in which such people could thrive. It was supposed to be a place in which a person could develop skills which involved training others and not a lot of back-biting and social skills related to climbing a ladder of any kind. To suddenly throw veteran teachers who have years of experience DOING THE JOB WELL into a snake pit is an act of the purest evil. The kind of person who becomes a teacher is not the kind of person who works on Wall Street. It has nothing to do with intellect, it has to do with temperament. These are not people who want to fight for their jobs. They have already done this by controlling classes of difficult students for 10 to 25 years in some cases. These are people who prove themselves by doing. They come in, go to work, work hard and go unnoticed. They are not showmen. They are very proud, very honest and very frightened. They didn't have time to go to the gym. They wrote tons of courses and they graduated so many success stories that they could talk about but they don't like to brag and they won't. They never wanted to have to ask for another job again. They thought they already earned their job and they can't imagine what they did wrong and somehow they feel they must have done something, no matter how many times you tell them otherwise. And the papers keep hinting that they did something.
They don't know how to speak up for themselves and they never did. That's part of the reason they became teachers because one thing they did know how to do was speak on behalf of others who did not know how to speak up for themselves. It's a great irony of the profession.