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Friday, September 05, 2008
Why Is It Sacrilege to Criticize Teachers?
I’ve noticed since I was a kid that there are two things that make a person completely reviling, detestable, base, nasty, perverse and evil: not liking dogs and criticizing teachers.
I’m only going to comment on one of these today, as tackling both at once may result in my death or imprisonment by angry mobs of dog-loving teachers.
Why are teachers treated different than every other profession when it comes to criticism? Have you ever criticized the service at a fast-food joint and had the person your dining with defensively say, “You have no idea what they go through each day”, or, “How could you hate the hands that feed the nation? The hands that feed our children?” Me either. Same goes for retail workers, salesmen, contractors, business people, lawyers, accountants, even college professors – all can be legitimately criticized without social ostracization. But not K-12 teachers.
I have nothing against teachers. I have nothing against fast food workers, salesmen, or any other professional group. I have problems with problems; and if I see them, I often criticize what I think is the source – whether the individual, the system they operate in, the culture or all of the above. But why is it that criticizing movie-makers when they generate poor content is seen as a right of passage into polite society, but criticizing teachers when they do the same is inhumane?
I really don’t know. Maybe I’m alone in this experience, but I feel I’ve never met a more defensive industry than teachers. Any
slightest commentary on their profession is seen as an attack that must
be motivated by hatred for children (and puppies and rainbows). Not just by teachers themselves, but by nearly everyone.
Maybe it’s because there are lots of teachers, and nearly everyone is related to or knows one. Then again, nearly everyone is related to or knows someone who’s worked a fast food joint. Maybe since they are paid by taxpayers, there is a fear that widespread criticism will lead to a pay cut. Of course this is hardly the case for other government-funded positions – lawmakers, and various other bureaucrats receive round criticism in the course of everyday conversation with no violent reactions or defenses.
Maybe it’s the combination of the two factors above. Everybody personally knows, and loves, a teacher. Everyone knows that teachers are paid by taxpayers. If teachers are criticized, than they risk losing taxpayer approval and funding. Everyone thinks of that underpaid loving teacher they know, and the shudder to think of them getting a pay cut or getting fired. But even these do not seem sufficient conditions to elicit the type of hot reactions to teacher criticism that often occur. After all, if you know a teacher who is really good, why would criticism of a bad teacher be harmful? Wouldn’t it help illustrate just how good the good teacher is compared to others? Wouldn’t that make the case that they should get paid even more? Aye, here’s the rub.
In a typical job market, this may be the case. But most teachers are members of a teachers union, and they are paid as members of a group, not as individuals. Therefore, to criticize one bad teacher is to threaten the funding of all. If education loses funding schools are often unable to fire or give pay cuts to the bad teachers; they are forced to do so across the board.
The combination of everyone knowing and loving a teacher, teachers being paid by government, and teachers being mostly unable to negotiate pay on an individual basis seems a likely culprit for this fierce anti-criticism environment. This incentive structure definitely lends itself to a fear of criticism.
Or maybe I’m just a vile person who hates everything nice. After all, I’m not a dog person.
(Cross-posted at the SFEblog)
Posted by Isaac Morehouse on September 5, 2008 in Current Affairs | Permalink
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Comments
I think the fact that almost all teachers are women has a great deal to do with it. Women, in general, are not as objective about criticism because they are more likely to view it as a personal attack than as an opportunity to fix something broken. For many women, an understanding ear is preferable to an actual solution.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-09-05 10:11:17 AM
There's an old saying that in a large outfit (this could apply to corporation or government institution) you can be paid double or half of what you're worth and there's no way of resolving the the difference. The institutionalization of the teaching "profession" has been so pervasive that virtually no form of rewards and incentives can function for individuals. There is no functioning market system at play. Even large private schools have incipient rot within their faculties.
The only solution is to break up the monopolies by allowing competition - home schools, charters, vouchers, and deregulation.
Posted by: John Chittick | 2008-09-05 10:39:16 AM
Isaac,
Those who can, do. Those who can't teach.
Teachers are lazy. They just became teachers because they like working 9-3 and having two months off every summer.
Teachers are just glorified babysiters.
Students are failing? Must be the teachers fault!
Any of these sound familiar? I'd say that you are wrong in thinking that teachers are somehow immune from criticism. The pushback on criticism comes from traditions of people saying and believing these general condemnations of the character and ability of people who teach.
Also, there is a difference between making a general criticism of a class of workers and criticising particular ones. If you said nurses are just people who aren't smart enough to be doctors you'd get the same pushback. Or try making general disparaging comments about soldiers, cops, or firefighters. You do hear those (just as you do about teachers), but they are typically followed by criticism and even outrage.
The issue, in short, is prejudice. To make general and false criticisms based on uninformed stereotypes is worth criticising and people who persist in holding them worth ostracizing. So if you say "Mrs. Jones is a terrible teacher" that's fine, provided you can say why. But anything that starts to sound like you are saying all teachers are incompetent or lazy or whatever else is likely to result in criticism.
Teachers are no different from doctors, nurses, soldiers, cops, firefighter, plumbers, bus drivers, or journalists. Some do a great job, some don't. Some are worthy of praise, some not. But any blanket negative generalizations about any of them are probably false enough that they deserve to be resisted. Just like racist, sexist, or other bigoted comments.
Posted by: Fact Check | 2008-09-05 10:41:15 AM
A teacher friend of mine once commented that people take the advice of their doctor, lawyer, accountant or other professional as gospel, but feel completely free to criticize and second guess at length and at volume well trained and experienced professional teachers. I suggested that it's about their kids, so people are a little biased and emotional about them. Essentially, though, you're right; teachers are public servants and as the public, we have every right to questions how they do their work, what results they get, etc. They still deserve the respect offered any professional.
Posted by: ykjay | 2008-09-05 11:14:31 AM
Those who can, do. Those who can't teach. ?????
That is one of the stupidest sayings I've ever heard. If it were true, I'd be very frightened about our society, economy and educational institutions. Just one of those stupid quotes that really doesn't make any sense. From my life experience those who can't aren't the ones teaching. They will not last.
Posted by: Tim Trudeau | 2008-09-05 11:17:33 AM
Fact Check,
Ah, yes, the "people are bigoted" solution. It covers everything while explaining nothing.
Some people feel it's unfair to criticize teachers in general for what their union does. It's not. They choose their leaders and spokeswomen by popular vote. Job actions and contracts are also decided by popular vote. I'm afraid there's no way to separate that out.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-09-05 11:43:50 AM
ykjay,
You make a good point, except it is a bit of a stretch to compare the doctors and lawyers to teachers. For one, the lever of specialized knowledge required of doctors and lawyers is pretty high. In the case of doctors, it is because the body is such a complex system and in the case of lawyers it is because the law is such a complex system. Lawyers and doctors require much longer and more intensive training periods than teachers do.
Furthermore, teaching is a lot less mysterious or unfamiliar to the average person. We all went through many years as students, so we have thousands of hours of experience of seeing just what teachers do in the classroom and ideas about what worked for us and our classmates. In addition, every parent is a teacher of their own children. Most children are taught to read by their parents and taught a great deal about the world by them. So when turning junior over to a kindergarten teacher who is just meeting the child, it is easy to see why the parent feels they have a better idea about what junior needs than the teacher does.
I would think a lawyer seeking legal assistance or a doctor seeking medical care would not be so quick to take what they are told as gospel. But then again it is sometimes said that a doctor is the worst kind of patient and a lawyer the worst kind of client. The same might well be true of parents who regard their teaching knowledge as sufficiently high to question the expertise of a trained, professional teacher.
So I'd say the gap in knowledge about education and skill in teaching between the average parent and average teacher is significant, but not nearly as high as it is between the average doctor and patient or the average lawyer and client. There are, after all, more than a few parents capable of home schooling their kids well, but not many I would trust to do home medical diagnoses of anything more than a cold or a scraped knee.
Posted by: Fact Check | 2008-09-05 11:46:25 AM
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach. Those who can do neither, manage. Those who can do none of the above, write (or talk). Dilbertland.
I think this statement had more in mind the tenured professors who are insulated from the real-world implications of their beliefs. Schoolteachers instructing in the basics are in quite a different category. Obviously you can't correct a math paper if you can't add. But you can certainly espouse absurd economic philosophies on campus without repercussions.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-09-05 11:50:09 AM
Actually, Tim, getting rid of indifferent or even incompetent teachers is pretty damned hard. The union doesn't like it, because each departed teacher decreases their bargaining power. They don't really care what their reputation is, so long as they get what they want come contract renewal time.
That is the model around which unions are built; they were designed for industrial workers in an industrial economy, not for public servants in a service economy. When public workers walk off the job, everybody suffers, not just one factory. As far as I'm concerned all government workers should be forbidden to strike, period.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-09-05 11:55:08 AM
Why are teachers treated different than every other profession when it comes to criticism?
Because we are supposed to understand that they have been "ordained" as the shapers of our future..."for the common good" of course.
I also have a friend who is a wonderful person that left teaching as a career because she simply could not look herself in the mirror any more. She actually wanted to "teach" and wasn't in it so much for the money. When she realized what the game plan was, she quit. She said, "I simply can't go in every day and hold one bright child back while leaving a slower one without proper attention and yet grade them as being pretty much the same, Its just not right"
I have a lot of respect for her.
Here's some thoughts on our education system:
Why is it that millions of children who are pushouts or dropouts amount to business as usual in the public schools, while one family educating a child at home becomes a major threat to universal public education and the survival of democracy? ~ Stephen Arons
"Parent choice'' proceeds from the belief that the purpose of education is to provide individual students with an education. In fact, educating the individual is but a means to the true end of education, which is to create a viable social order to which individuals contribute and by which they are sustained.~ Association of California School Administrators
As we all learned from the sorry experience of state-sanctioned bureaucracies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, decentralization [in education] is crucial to both freedom and excellence.~ Jerry Brown
Schools have not necessarily much to do with education... they are mainly institutions of control, where basic habits must be inculcated in the young. Education is quite different and has little place in school. ~ Sir Winston Churchill
The sovereignty fetish is still so strong in the public mind, that there would appear to be little chance of winning popular assent to American membership in anything approaching a super-state organization. Much will depend on the kind of approach which is used in further popular education. ~ Council on Foreign Relations
Posted by: JC | 2008-09-05 12:16:59 PM
The root of the problem is teachers' unions. They are the ones protecting incompetent teachers and opposing any real assessment of teachers. Some friends who are teachers feel so frustrated by this and resent being forced to pay dues to a union whose policies and agenda are in complete opposition to their beliefs and values. There are good, even excellent, teachers and there are extremely bad ones but the good ones are seldom able to rise to the top. My friends are actually moving out of teaching into different jobs due to the pathetic state of affairs.
Posted by: Alain | 2008-09-05 12:21:09 PM
Alain, if teachers are so discontented with their union, why do they not deregulate, or vote in union bosses more conducive to constructive reform? A common thread running through blanket defence of teachers is that there are only a few bad ones, but you can't invalidate a rule by quoting exceptions.
Sooner or later, the teachers' house will be cleaned. All that is left to be decided is when it will happen and who will do it.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-09-05 12:31:35 PM
Sooner or later, the teachers' house will be cleaned. All that is left to be decided is when it will happen and who will do it.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 5-Sep-08 12:31:35 PM
I think that's right Shane. I also think that particular field will not be the only one that has a major house cleaning coming. (But you already think I'm just a nut anyway haha)
have a good one.
Posted by: JC | 2008-09-05 12:39:11 PM
Shane, clearly my teacher friends do not represent the majority which is why they have no influence with their union. If they were free (which they are not according to our judicial activists) to choose not to join nor pay union dues, I suspect their number would only increase.
Posted by: Alain | 2008-09-05 3:05:15 PM
I lost all respect for teachers and their union went they went out on strike for "the sake of the children".
Posted by: Bocanut | 2008-09-05 6:10:23 PM
Parent working or parents working- who looks after the children if teachers strike? Baby sitters may be necessary but few parents want to pay the price and they rarely respect baby sitters.
Posted by: DML | 2008-09-05 11:20:10 PM
Shane said:
Sooner or later, the teachers' house will be cleaned. All that is left to be decided is when it will happen and who will do it.
Right. Boy that sounds good Shane. The only problem is who will do the job once the house is cleaned? Many new teachers can already be very picky about where they work...substitutes are almost impossible to find in my area, and I suspect in many areas. So, your statement is nice, but not very practical. That's another reason why the salaries aren't going down to the same zone as those poor physicists you are worried about. Hey, maybe they'll take the new teaching jobs once the house is cleaned...
Posted by: markalta | 2008-09-06 1:38:28 AM
Markalta, remember when the air traffic controllers went on strike and Ronald Reagan fired every one of them? It can be done; all it takes is moxie and, of course, replacements waiting in the wings.
Teaching would be a good living at half the average teacher's salary. And incentives can be offered to serve a few years in rural or remote locations. Also don't forget that since Canadians have been remarkably negligent in matters procreative, enrolment is actually dropping, so we soon won't need as many teachers.
Abolishing province-wide bargaining would be a step in the right direction. If a system is so dysfunctional that it has had to have settlements imposed for EVERY contract, urgent attention is clearly required.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-09-06 9:10:49 AM
Okay, I can see we are talking about apples and oranges here, Shane. You may be referring to the nutbars in the BC College of Teachers or Ontario, and I would certainly go along with that. However, here in Alberta, none of what you said makes any sense. You will not get enough teachers to do the many times thankless job at half (as you say) of the wage. It just won't happen. Your key phrase is (replacements waiting in the wings)
Sure you might have a few thousand unemployed teachers in Nova Scotia, but they won't leave their home province for a wage equal to what they could make as a labourer. Noble ideas though. Now if we could just get our politicians to work for half the wage too.
Posted by: Markalta | 2008-09-06 9:50:49 AM
Maybe the problem is that we just don't know what, exactly, we WANT teachers to do/be? Education has sort of morphed from what you do when you want to master something into just a mandatory stage in life that all children must muddle through to be normal. Are teachers simply to be the guardians of the kids as they "grow up"? Are they to be true experts who demand in-depth learning of subjects? The latter is hard when everyone is expected to go through school with a passing grade; the content inevitably gets over-simplified for the best students.
I agree with the phrase "those who can, do. those who can't, teach", except I don't see it as a bad thing. Why would I teach if I was better at doing? Why would I do if I was better at teaching? You use your comparative advantage. This is not a condemnation of teachers any more than it is of doers. The best teachers I've had were professional teachers. They understood what made the economy work better than anyone and they could explain it, even if they didn't actually "do" any of it themselves. Often those who are really great at doing are terrible at teaching. I had a chemistry teacher who was a brilliant chemist, but he couldn't explain what he could do worth a lick.
I like teaching as a profession. I like to teach. I just wonder at the defensiveness of teachers in general. When I worked in the legislature, bills dealing with teachers generated the most hateful ravings from teachers (often rife with bad grammar and spelling), unlike any other complaints from any other constituency. I grew up home schooled, and people who taught would treat me like a criminal and act as if I'd kicked a puppy in the face because my parents had the audacity not to send me to be educated by them. (This anger was, no doubt, due to the fact that school receive per-pupil funding from the state). I never met a waiter who got so angry that I went to other restaurants. That's the mystery this post is questioning.
Posted by: Isaac | 2008-09-06 10:06:23 AM
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