An article made its way to my inbox recently... the question "Is teaching a part-time job?" has arisen again, and a commentator on EdWeek has responded. Of course, I am always wondering why those what shout so loudly about how great we have it aren't applying to our local state college for the post-bac program in teacher education... anyways.
I have a little different take on what teaching is... for me, teaching is knowing my stuff... really knowing it. I read and write all of the time to find out what we need to do to making school relevant. When colleagues (and principals and school board members and others) ask me questions, I find answers that come from the best scholarship I can find.
Once I understand what the answer is, I craft the answer for them, and typically they ignore it. Too often today, education is a political issue-- a community or school board member or principal or teacher who seeks personal benefit takes on the "challenge" of leaving no child behind or winning the race to the top.
We forget that teaching is about young people and their brains. Teaching is about helping young people develop the skills they will need for a rapidly changing world.
If you think you know how to do that, you are wrong... you can bring your skills and experience to a new group of students each day and try to create it every day and in every class, but you cannot talk someone else's talk and walk someone else's walk in hopes of replicating their success.
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