Response to “The Incredible Disappearing Teacher” by Dr. Jessica Wildfire
Dear Dr. Wildfire,
I am writing in response to your well-written article which is entitled, “The Incredible Disappearing Teacher”. While I agree with many of your points of view, I do not agree with many as well. Below will focus on what I find disagreeable.
Here is the link to your article (for interested readers):
You speak of students coming to you for help. As a professor myself, albeit an assistant professor, I find it odd that you would take it upon yourself to persuade or dissuade based on your biased experience which is apparently a negative one. When students come to me for advice, the first thing I want to know is what their long-term goals in life are. They come to me with a passion and I intend to help them know what is required of them to be successful. I give them career advice as to what they need to do. I do not tell them that they should not do this or that based on my own experience. Generally, if you want a particular type of advice, if you ask people who did it that way they will tell you to do it that way. You obviously are an exception to this.
You should not dissuade people from being a teacher if that is what they feel they want to do. Each student comes in with their own experiences. We need teachers who are passionate about teaching. Let students follow their dreams. To say that someone is too smart to teach is borderline insane. We need highly intelligent people in the education system. You stated that you recommend “other lines of work, like fast food and cafes”. I do not understand your logic there.
In terms of all of your hard work culminating in nothing, are there no deliverables along the way that would suggest anything you are doing is worthwhile? Perhaps this is teaching students and helping create the next generation of whatever it is that is your specialty.
You don’t need to lie. You should tell students what they need to do to be successful in what they are aspiring to be. Your complaint of feeding the nation’s need for a cheap, disposable workforce of professional babysitters is a deep issue. The system is broken. The nation itself does not value teachers and the nation definitely should. This doesn’t mean that we should dissuade highly intelligent people from being teachers. My thoughts turn to my own children. I want them to be successful. I want them to have great teachers. Am I personally willing to pay higher taxes? Definitely. It is sad that grade schools are needing to spend a great deal of time fund raising so they can buy the things they need. You hear of horror stories of teachers spending their own money for the young students to have things they need. This is ridiculous and the system is broken. Is the answer to dissuade intelligent students from being teachers? Maybe the bright aspiring students can help fix this broken system. You should teach students the system is broken and teach them that we need people to fix this problem. We need bright minds fixing this issue. It will not fix itself and the answer is not to make such a deficit of good teachers in the nation, that the system completely fails. If we let the system fail, then we fail our children. Let’s help the system succeed.
My suggestion would be to be honest in sharing your opinions but ask the students to be aware of the issues and tell them it desperately needs to be fixed. It is up to them whether they follow their passion. Students do not lack information in regards to what the salary will be like, etc. They have all of that information available to them. Let them decide for themselves.
Based on what you have written, I’d recommend you quit your job and find something that you are happy with (a good balance between the salary you want/need and what you like to do). Everyone should decide for themselves how that balance works for them. If there is someone who wants to make a lot of money, they are not going to care perhaps if they have to do something that is disgusting to other people. Perhaps someone else is happy making a modest living and also being able to do something they really enjoy. It appears you are the type of person that wants to be paid more and you don’t really care what you have to do to make the money. That is not how everyone works.