Terry Cowgill

Who Needs Encouragement?

August 26, 2006 on 3:21 pm | In Education, Main |

It happens every year around this time. As a former teacher and as someone with two little kids, I start thinking about school, which gets me to thinking about education, which gets me to thinking about how to improve our schools.

I guess I’m mostly happy with my own kids’ school. Still, in a lot of ways I dread thinking about education because on some levels it seems hopeless and depressing.

Be that as it may, I noticed and read an article that appeared on the op-ed page of The Hartford Courant Monday, Aug. 21. As I write this, the link is still active. Click here to read it.

Headlined “Teachers Need Encouragement, Too,” and written by Dorothy Rich of the MegaSkills Education Center in Washington, the piece argues that we need to attract and retain the best teachers possible. Who could disagree with that? How do you do it, she asks?

Answer: Not the way we are doing it now. Criticism and blame do not result in better teachers, only more discouraged teachers.

True again, but this is not unique to teaching. And I guess that’s one of the problems I have with her whole piece and with the profession of which I used to be a part.

Full disclosure: I tend to like teachers, largely because I was one myself and I enjoyed my time in education. Still, I taught high school English and drama for 13 years and always found teaching to be an enclosed environment. Perhaps it’s because teachers tend to be focused on their own classrooms and their own students (which is perfectly understandable, if not inevitable).

As a result, some teachers and their supporters think the job of instructing youngsters is harder than just about any other occupation. I know. I used to think this and so did a lot of my colleagues. We were confronted every day with an array of social problems that we were ill-equipped to deal with. As a result, about half the time we felt like we were tilting at windmills. Those seemed like pretty bad odds to us.

But back to Ms. Rich: After conceding that the general public has made great strides in understanding schooling, she persists in thinking that the field of education is somehow special:

Yet, misconceptions persist, especially about educational accountability, and who is responsible for doing what. This results in blame and emotions that scare and discourage students and teachers.

I’ve got news for you, Ms. Rich. Emotions and blame are a part of many work places. As a former educator, I know firsthand how if feels to deal with angry and presumptuous parents. I know how maddening and disheartening it can be for an underserving teacher (especially a young one) to get chewed out by a parent upset that his/her kid flunked a final exam. And yes, it can be profoundly discouraging.

But it doesn’t get any easier in other professions. Try coming into the newsroom on a Monday morning ready to face the week and getting a phone call from a screaming reader angry at you for not reprinting a press release verbatim (which we never do anyway). Several years ago at another place, I was sitting calmly at my desk and watched in disbelief as a mobster’s son stormed into my office and closed the door behind him.

Try being a spokesman for someone who is ethically challenged. Try being self-employed and chasing clients to pay bills so that you can pay yours. These things actually happened to me after I left teaching and they were surely discouraging. But hey, life goes on.

When I left teaching and went into journalism and later into fundraising and PR, I was struck by how externally-related my new jobs were. Since I was now charged with traveling and meeting many people, my employers gave me business cards — something I never needed in the inward-looking education profession. Visiting with donors and interviewing sources gave me a close look at how other people lived and what they did for work, opening my eyes to the challenges they faced every day.

I guess my point is sometimes we all need to step back and take a breath. And yes, I would include journalists, too, because we can be a self-important crowd. Lots of people have tough jobs and have to take abuse. The trick is to hold your head high and not let it bother you too much. Then if that doesn’t work, consider finding an easier line of work.