In spite of what people choose to believe, teachers are in the profession because they know the importance and benefits of an education, and want students to experience those benefits. Although not true of all of them, too many people move as quickly out of the classroom into administration as possible, some for what at the time seemed the right thing to do for the benefit of students, while for others it is because the further you are away from the children the higher the prestige and the money that goes with it.

For teachers, what is important is how well the students are doing and how much of the information they should be learning, they are. Considering the negative attitudes promoted concerning teachers, which benefit those with an anti-public school agenda, (teachers have a difficult time dealing with the continuous attacks and the attempts to constantly paint them as anti-children), teachers still do the best they can under circumstances over which they have little to no control.

The reasons for the lack of control of their profession and the classrooms in which they teach go back to the beginnings of public education and its improper use to promote family members, to train students to think a certain way so as to support the existing power structure, and to give those with political aspirations the first step, or the only step, in a political career having relied on voter apathy and the lack of interest in education as opposed sports, politics, and religion to get elected

There has been a lot of political talk of late about the need to fix public education. This need to fix what was not broken by those in the classroom is a need to repair all the political damage done to public education by those who have little more than a political interest in it. To understand the “problem” and its source, it is necessary to look at the history of the public education system.

     When public education began, the United States was agricultural/mercantile, so education needed to deal with only the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. The upper class males had had the opportunity of education for centuries through peerage and the church. Their education was practical and geared toward whatever was necessary for the exercise of civil or religious power, and, later on, industry.

Women were limited in what they could learn, and that usually allowed them to read a long English novel to other upper class ladies as they knitted or sewed in the drawing room while their husbands led countries or conducted business.

The larger cities, which were in the minority, needed an educational system that would ready people to enter the workforce with the education needed to get the work done. In rural areas with an emphasis on agriculture, education had to be basic and practical. The world had yet to progress to where more was needed by the majority of the population than an eighth grade education, if they even went that far. Education was not a priority, but it did serve a purpose, and definitely was never an end in itself. It had to be relevant to the needs of the community, anything more being a luxury that would waste time. It was a chore that someone, other than the parents, had to do since at the beginning of the country, because of their own limited education and need to work, the parents were either unable to, or had no time to instruct their children in the basics. But educating the children was something that had to be done, and hopefully at little cost. Too much education was not only a dangerous thing for the powers that be, but it was a costly danger if properly supported.

Since anyone who had gotten a basic education would be able to pass it on to those who were younger, and as it also would serve as day care for the children while the parents took care of business, it made sense to hire a young, nurturing female not much older than the oldest student in town, who would eventually marry and move on leaving the position opened to be filled, if needed, by an exact replica.

It was not a manly profession, but men were in charge of the boards that set up the system. Theirs was the realm of politics and control. Women knew their place, and were to follow the orders of the men and teach the basics. It was a system that would need little money either in salary or in costs to run as there was only one building the size of a small house and one young woman glad to get whatever pay she was lucky to get in a world where most women did not work outside the home, or make money on their own to use as they saw fit, and who would eventually find a husband who brought home the bacon.

In some places the rules of the teacher’s behavior were reasonable, in others not. Sometimes the responsibilities of the teacher involved just teaching and nurturing. Sometimes they also included more strenuous physical responsibilities like building fires, sweeping rooms, or doing the building maintenance at the little red school house.

In any case, the teacher was an expendable commodity, grateful to have a job, and very glad to do what was required to keep it. This is made clear when a review of teacher rules in many places shows they forbad dating in public, and required the teacher resign upon marriage as pregnancy was an assumed next step, and no one wanted children who grew up on farms and saw gestating animals on a regular basis to see an actually pregnant person. This would not have necessarily been the case if men were the teachers, but that was not the case in the beginning when the mindset was first formed, and men teaching seemed a little too unmanly.

Times changed over the years as the requirements of an industrialized country called for a higher level of education than the basics; a trend that has not stopped. Where once a few years of schooling was sufficient for a decent career, first a high school diploma then a college degree, or at least an associate’s degree, has now become that minimum. Sadly the power structure has not evolved as it should have in either operational procedures or mindsets. While public education is in the twenty first century, those in charge are still applying the methods of running the system that were passed down from elected board to elected board like a Mason’s secret. This is how it was done; this is how it still is.

This is who teachers were and still are, as far as they are concerned.

There are various reasons why a person runs for a School Board seat, perhaps as many as the number of people who have, or who will ever run for the position. But a common thread is the exercise of power which is still wielded like teachers were the same expendable commodities as were the originals, and who in spite of their college degrees are still treated as if they know only a little more than the oldest student in the school and, therefore, are indoor field hands, not professionals.

Administrators are chosen according to how closely they will perpetuate the system, and how close their philosophies match those of the Board. The administrators’ loyalties are more toward the board than the teachers because of who signs the paychecks, allows people to keep their jobs, and decides who will get the higher paying position with the more prestigious title and image. A suggestion from below them that may be valid is seen as a threat because, not being their idea, it might appear the one making it is smarter and, therefore, a worthy replacement.

The administrators usually recommend a similar type to themselves to a leadership position when the Board asks for input in hiring. It becomes viral, and actually has already.

When it comes to the teachers, they are never consulted on educational matters; their input is never sought, and if offered, routinely ignored; and unless they promote the administrators in the eyes of their superiors, they are seen as undesirable trouble makers. The waters of the administrative lake must remain ripple free so the captain of the boat, no matter how incompetent, will appear expert in the absence of challenges.

The days of the easily ignored “school marm” and the occasional male teacher treated like one ended when the Second World War ended, the space age began, the world became more modern, and men saw education as much as a calling as women did. The men did not get married, then pregnant, and have to leave for the convenience of those in charge who liked the power but lacked the required acumen. The first great wave of male teachers beyond universities and church schools came after World War II, and these were the men who had faced death, given orders in life and death situations, followed serious orders in those same situations, and then came home having seen the value of education in a post Depression, World War era.

The existing and expected continuance of the Ichabod Crane school master wound down. But women continued to teach in the majority, generally being a second income to the husband’s more “serious” employment, and the comfort of running things as school boards had always been running things was slow to go away. School Boards were slow to realize that the people teaching were changing in attitude and expertise, and were no longer just a few years ahead of their students and waiting for a Prince Charming. They were professional, and as a group became more so as attrition in the field helped the system change further away from the Miss Crabtree, spinster, or soon to meet a man, stereotype.

Power is not easy to give up. What seems worse is being the one who is the last of the line and the final one to have occupied the throne. That place in history is seen more as the negative loss of power, than the positive win of accepting reality and exercising the real potency that it truly is. So, the status quo continues as does the time and energy required to protect and justify it.

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As the world became more complicated and demanding, so did the classroom. Normal Schools which had trained armies of young girls in the fundamentals of “Readin’, ‘Ritin’, and ‘Rithmatic”, the rudiments of art and music, basic practical sciences like sewing and cooking, and general socially acceptable fine points of deportment became colleges with stricter curricula in all areas of study including science and math, especially after an atomic bomb could be dropped on the earth, whipping out huge acreages at once, and a rocket could be shot into space with a satellite or a man in it.

However, those who inherited a system of running schools as overlords with unrestricted power were slow to move along. They continued the mindset that had attracted them to their position on boards of education in the first place which generally amounted to their getting elected to the highest political position they would ever hold, the chance to help their own children when it came to preference in certain programs like sports, and the chance to be in charge of people who would not question them either because they knew their place or were only going to be around until they found a husband, or got fired because they were seen in public on a date, or, of course, worse, pregnant.

Bureaucracy grew as school districts did with directors, chairs, and chief operation officers added on as seemingly needed. Positions were often jerry-rigged into the system as a stop gap measure to handle new situations, and these often became the reasons for their own existence. What was forgotten was that the focal point of the districts was not its central administration, but the classrooms. Instead of the district and its administrators supporting the teachers in the classrooms, the teachers worked for the administrators and for their purposes.

What has been turned around is the purpose.

The purpose of an administrator should be to insure the teacher in the classroom has what the teacher needs to get the job done, not dictate to the teacher what he/she is to teach and with what they will be allowed to teach it.

The word, administrator, itself comes from the Latin “to minister to”. The professional educator is the one in the classroom who on a daily basis assesses students both formally and informally, educationally and socially. They see the students work as individuals or members of groups; see what sparks a student or causes boredom; develop a rapport which allows for a relationship based on reason, a firm set of beliefs, and a degree of kindness; and all this on an ongoing, morphing basis that goes largely ignored in the decision making process of those in charge but who are not in a classroom or near a student

The present from-the-top-down approach has actually perpetuated old problems while also introducing new ones, ones that could have been avoided if more input was accepted from those in the classroom. People in charge of school districts, like Boards of Education, cannot be involved in the day to day running of schools and so a lot of delegating takes place. They may not be familiar with all the personnel under them, so school boards come to rely on recommendations from those who should be when it comes to promotions and programs, and as in most cases what, or who is promoted is based more closely on what is familiar and friendly to the ones making the recommendations than on anything else. And, this being the case, as stated before, those most like the ones in charge are moved up and a type of culture develops based on their shared beliefs whether correct or not.

Compliance with what is recommended or who is promoted is usually accompanied by the threat of dismissal if not followed, so there is a built in guarantee that all new ideas and all new appointments will go unchallenged. This obey-or-perish approach has replaced the public dating, marrying, or pregnancy of the girls who used to be the teaching force as the most convenient way to rid the board of thinking teachers, or those who appear to be a threat to the positions and pay of those who should face the occasional threat for what they have done to education. 

For the majority of my career, education had been a good thing. Teachers had the freedom in their classrooms to approach their subject matter as they saw fit, according to their talents and the observable needs and talents of their students.

There were results.

However, when the politicians found education was a vote getter because, after all, children were involved, things began to change as what teachers knew needed to be done was abandoned for what the politicians wanted for their own purposes. Then education became a question of compliance to what administrators believed would make them look very successful, even if the students really learned little.

The main objection to teachers having collective bargaining rights and Unions is that the decision making has to be shared with those in the classroom, and when authority and power is threatened, even as they should be and for the right reasons, those who are invested in them due to their own agenda become defensive.

The desire to bring back the day of the compliant and easily threatened and dismissed “school marm” becomes very strong and attractive.

It is comfortable.

What is threatening is a thinking and strong teacher force that knows what is best and will fight to have it realized.

That is why those who are in position of authority, and who have never actually taught will design policies that will eliminate what they consider a threat.

And it is this attitude that is presently in full view when it comes to re-opening schools as decisions are coming from the top with little consultation with the teachers who are expected to not only teach those in the classroom, but those who are kept home by fearful parents while teachers will be held accountable for any failure resulting from the decision of others. They will also have to address their students’ various learning styles, languages, home situations, idiosyncrasies, all things they are familiar with for having dealt with students in class and knowing them, but will be held to universal success by those who have no idea that these considerations exist and only see the classroom as a room full of kids with a teacher at the front who pours information into eager, empty vessels thirsty for knol3dge with no connection to reality.

Since students spend every day with teachers, teachers are expected to be co-, or surrogate parents but without the authority to parent.

Rather than enact ordinances, realistic programs, and social networks to handle society’s problems as related to youth, the attitude is that, since the kids are in school all day anyway, have the teachers deal with those things.

After school shootings we are told it is not the time to discuss reasonable gun control laws as a way to at least slow down the occurrences of school shooting, but plenty of time is spent deciding what the teachers must do before, during, and after such an event. They have to protect the children while at the same time stopping the shooter and dealing with the physical and emotional aftermath.

And. They have to make sure all students are educated equally and completely.

Now in the days of COVID 19, politicians are discussing the opening of schools. Along with teaching their subject matter, teachers will now be responsible for the health of their students and insuring that all regimens to prevent the spread of the virus are adhered to. They will be responsible for making sure kids keep a distance from each other and wear their masks, adding another disciplinary assignment to their duties, while being vulnerable to the virus themselves which can be brought into the school by faculty, staff, and students, and home by them.

In exchange for the added duties, teachers will be repaid with such things as the possible elimination of the teacher’s minimum salary schedule, school district provided health insurance, negotiations between a school district and employees, and teacher evaluation and due process protections while teachers are tasked with somehow making whatever someone thinks is a great idea work, and take the blame for the failure of them while their authors take n0o responsibility for failed leadership.

Until there are specific and firm guidelines for re-opening schools, and it is made clear how much liability will be placed on the teachers who had no say in the re-opening and the procedures they will be required to follow while being held to 100% success with student achievement as those responsible point at teachers as the reason for any bad outcomes, they should be kept closed.