Is teaching noble...revisited!

I had the fortunate opportunity to be a guest columnist for the Dallas Morning News' "Community Voices" from November 2009 through October of 2010 and my first article, presented below, offers up a reminder of what is happening, here in Texas, because we've removed the emphasis of being well-educated and well-trained out of the hands of those that care and put it in the hands of those that don't!  Texas is laying off teachers, the trainers of the next generation, as if educating our children is the least of our concerns and worries.  Does this undertaking send chills down the spine of anyone else?

     My great-grandfather, Eugene Dix was born into slavery in 1855.  Some years later he attended Tuskegee Institute and studied under Booker T. Washington.  Impressed by the man, my great-grandfather endeavored to have that same positive impact on subsequent generations as an educator, himself.   He met his bride, my great-grandmother Catherine, while working for the Census Bureau in Alabama.  They began their family and Eugene chose teaching as his profession.  Several years and five children later, Catherine told Eugene that he would have to choose another profession as being a teacher was not allowing him to earn enough money to support the family.  A relative in Texas suggested that sharecropping was a viable option so Eugene and Catherine moved the family to Bryan, Texas.  Eugene anticipated returning to his career as a teacher once he was able to earn enough supplemental income as a sharecropper.  His dream of being a teacher was put on hold.  He became a successful farmer and landowner accumulating over 130 acres of land that he cultivated and leased out to other sharecroppers. 

     Definitions listed for the word noble included virtuous; morally good, superior in character and exalted.  Do you remember when that was how teachers were regularly described?  There was nobility assigned to being entrusted with guiding the next generation of adults in obtaining the knowledge needed to become productive, law-abiding citizens able to contribute to this great nation.  Remember, that was why so many opted to become teachers.  Sorrowfully, it is a calling that many have answered only to be unpleasantly surprised to learn that their noble contribution is not so highly valued.  As such, how many great teachers do you think decided to abandon the profession because we don’t compensate them like we appreciate their efforts?

     Why don’t we reward these noble guardians of the minds of our youth?  Why don’t we place them on that pedestal and pay them for doing this great service for the continued prosperity of our country?  Why don’t we pay them a salary commiserate to the daunting task that we expect them to accomplish?  We continually read and hear about the latest statistics that place us well below other industrialized nations in preparing our youth to compete in the world market.  There is a disconnect in the cause and effect of our dismissal of the importance of education and how it manifests itself in the chasm between the skilled and unskilled labor forces in the United States.

     In his book, Anti-intellectualism in American Life, Richard Hofstadter said, “The teacher is, or can be, the first more or less full-time, professional representative of the life of the mind who enters into the experience of most children. The feelings the child entertains toward the teacher are focal points in the formation of his early, rudimentary notions about learning.  The teacher is not merely an instructor but a potential personal model and a living clue to the attitudes that prevail in the adult world.”  In his book, Hofstadter also noted that detractors to the argument of the importance of teachers suggested that characteristically, as Myron Lieberman remarks, teachers are recruited “from the top of the lower half of the population.”  He said, “The upper and upper-middle class persons almost universally reject teaching as a profession.”  This seems the prevailing attitude, still, for almost the past 60 years.  American teachers earned a per capita income far below that of teachers in European democracies.   Teachers’ salaries, also, compare less favorably among professions in the United States.  Truthfully, shouldn’t we want to generously compensate our educators considering the kind of influence they can have on our children? 

     Obviously, the disparity in behavior and performance expectations versus monetary compensation for teachers has been a bone of contention for generations.  There is little doubt that teaching is a noble profession.  However, for far too long the rate of compensation being paid to teachers has been ignoble!  Thankfully, monetary compensation is not the driving force behind the choice to be a teacher. 

     Although my great-grandfather never got to fulfill his dream and return to being a teacher, he did leave a lasting legacy of educators who do fulfill that dream.  He had a son that was a teacher, a granddaughter who married a teacher, a great-granddaughter who is a teacher and a great-great-granddaughter who is a teacher.  Teaching is still noble and it will be so, forever more!