A Message to Parents About My Profession

The gods of education must have laughed when I got my first teaching gig, when someone handed me a guide and told me I’d be teaching science. It wasn’t just that I preferred other subjects, but that I literally detested science, in the same way a lot of people hate math and social studies. I was so bad at science that any college professor would have been embarrassed to learn, that of all their students, I was the one teaching fourth graders about plants and planets.

What a sham, on paper.

But I don’t think the school hired me for that gig because they thought I was proficient in science. They hired me to fill that role because they needed someone who was willing to learn, to do whatever it took, whatever was necessary to be a good educator. They hired me because they trusted me to get the job done. So I took that guide, I took that subject, and I studied it. I figured it out. I did what they expected of me and I don’t think I let any of my kids down. I’m sure some of them thought it was my favorite subject, because I taught it with a level of enthusiasm that would have made me a star on broadway. And today, as it so happens, I still teach science, one grade up, along with math and social studies.

The thing about my profession, about my colleagues, the thing that makes us all unique, is that we’re always learning, we’re always reading, we’re always studying. And even on topics that we’re uncomfortable, we never want to stand in front of our students and wing it. We believe in knowing and planning what we’re about to say before we say it, anticipating the types of questions our kids might ask, and the things we might need to answer back. And believe it or not, we’ve always been pretty careful with our words, conscious of what may help or hinder someone’s education, regardless of our individual views on a subject.

This trait of educators is part of why we’ve been entrusted with your children, because we aren’t in the business of half-assing our instruction, of filling time or padding our bank accounts. We are not a collection of babysitters-for-hire, nor do we work for a daycare. We’re just teachers, educated, hard-working, and well-equipped to deal with quite a lot more than we often get credit. But we do what we do and teach what we teach because we want our kids to walk away, day after difficult day, a little more knowledgeable, a little more inspired, a little more willing to take risks and improve the world we’re leaving for them.

This thing we do is a partnership with families, with all the moms and dads, aunts and uncles, grandmas and grandpas we send them back to each afternoon. And to be honest, most of us who can actually reach the parents take pride in having the best relationship possible, having empathy for those occasional challenges at home, and helping parents through the ins and outs of their child’s assignment, if and when it seems a little overwhelming. Moms and dads have far too much on their plates to remember the steps for multiplying fractions, or the nuances of American civics. That’s why we’re here, to learn, to read, to study, to teach, to help. As a matter of necessity, many of us have become the jack of all subjects, master of several more.

And one thing we know is that teaching is more than following a book or a standard or a rule. Teaching is about relationships. It’s about honesty and authenticity. It’s about preparation. It’s about dealing with uncomfortable topics from time to time, for us and for them. Frankly, I’m certain there are parents who could argue, quite reasonably, that learning about fractions and photosynthesis has no lasting merit on their child, that they tolerate what we teach because for a few hours every day, they trust us to take care of their child. But we, as their teachers, believe we might be looking at the next great engineer, the next astronaut, the next pediatrician. So we keep teaching those topics that might seem otherwise useless, because they might actually mean more to a child than we recognize in the moment. As I said before, we don’t teach them to pass the time, but to give them the tools, the information, the skills they need to succeed and aid the world and our nation to better itself.

So alas, I come to the point of this article. Of late, there has been a pretty radical push from parents, seeking to muzzle the freedom of teachers to teach. At one point, before I was born, there was talk of removing any mention of evolution, until many came to terms with the possibility that religion and science weren’t so far removed from each other, or didn’t have to be. Then it was global warming, until someone decided, after all, that maybe we ought to care about the planet. And now, it seems, that many would prefer we never mention race, or homosexuality, or gender disparities. And having made a federal case of their push, many parents have already achieved their goal, causing teachers across the spectrum to tiptoe through their instruction, to dance around words, trying not to trip, twisting themselves in pretzels so as not to dare mention anything that might, in an upside down world, get them fired or fined. God forbid they address an issue that comes up naturally, either through the news, through what our kids already see, or through the curriculum, through a sequence of topics we have to cover regardless.

Tomorrow, I’ll be teaching my students about the value of coins, about whether we need them or not, especially when they get such little use, like all those pennies that cost more to make than to spend. But I don’t imagine someone from the U.S. Treasury Department, someone who mints coins for a living, will be asking me to step down from teaching, or accusing me of American betrayal. If anything, my goal is to foster a conversation, because neither I nor my students are in a position to change the role of coins in our economy. What we will be, however, is well informed of their value to society at large, how companies have ushered in a wave of “round up” charities, taking those loose dimes and quarters to use them for something better than a dirty pocket.

Teachers don’t succeed in engaging their students or raising critical thinkers when they follow a script, or when they’re told that they can’t talk about this or that. If anything, it either crushes their spirit and they quit, leaving a vacuum that equally dampens the quality of a child’s education, or it emboldens them to push back, to become incidental activists, to become unnecessary rebels, simply to say what unavoidably still needs to be said.

So here’s my message to parents, to every mom and dad who looks at me, at my colleagues, at my profession with fear and suspicion, as if we’re all conspiring in dark rooms to warp the minds of children. Please stop. Let us do what we’ve been trained to do. Let us do what we read, study, and spend all our waking hours trying to do. Let us teach. Most of us are pretty good at it, not because of WHAT we teach but because of WHO we teach, because we care more about your child, your family, our nation, then we do our individual and imperfect subjects. We are now, will always be, and have always been your partners, each of us seeking the best interest of a generation whose potential for tomorrow depends on how we train them today.

Be well, my friends.