Teacher-Survivor Challenge

Teacher-Survivor Challenge

Last week I was reading where someone was going to make a television show about teachers surviving as teachers like contestants; similar to competing as chefs, or as a bachelor or bachelorette, or for sole survivor. This would be a big mistake. 

How sad! This has the make up of setting teachers up for mockery or the satire of teachers. Teaching involves a component which all the other best of the best competition shows do not include, and that is that they influence other people’s children and no two classrooms are ever the same. Teachers have a profound impact on lives, where chefs may have challenging ingredients, and bachelors/bachelorettes deal with interesting adult personalities. Student behaviors are not something to make light of when judging another person’s performance. For one thing, they are minors, and for another, they are someone else’s child. This is a very sensitive population to be putting under a competition show focus. 

Teaching is not a reality show, but is something which has impact on lives at all ages. We hear often that teachers should be honored. Teacher’s themselves need to take some pride in their profession and start showing the public the impact they have on our society rather than throwing another show out into the media picking fun at instruction. My hope is at some point that strong teachers will stand up and show all that goes within a day of instruction. We can no longer assume as an ignorant population that these people walk in off the streets and make geniuses out of their students. The teaching profession is a rapidly changing field that requires teachers who excel to be constantly engaging in self-reflection and action research within their classrooms and the profession in general. It should be honored, not mocked.