Let’s Talk About Teachers
We should double their salary and get rid of the bottom 10%.
“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”
— Henry Adams
Teachers have a tough job.
We honor our teachers with our words but we disrespect them with our actions.
The world just put them through arguably the worst period in learning history by shutting down all the schools worldwide and forcing educators to interact with children online. This was abusive to the kids as well as to the teachers.
But they have somehow made it through this. They were scarred, however, and burnout rates are very high.
Teaching is a peculiar profession as it can be the most rewarding while at the same time the most thankless.
We hold our teachers to the highest standard yet we don’t give them the resources and support to succeed.
Let’s talk about teachers.
Burnout Rates
The data is both interesting and depressing with regards to teaching.
The system is structured — whether intentionally or not — to create teacher burnout. The education system purports to be based on research but it is actually diametrically opposed to what the research states.
The most common causes of teacher burnout include:
- Poor school funding
- Complications related to COVID-19
- Unattainable goals for standardized testing
- Classroom behavior issues
- Dealing with difficult parents
- Not enough planning time
- Feeling under appreciated
- Lack of autonomy
When you don’t give professionals enough money, destroy their work environment, force metrics on students proven to reveal nothing and then put them in front of the most demanding people in the world — parents — things aren’t going to work out very well.
The issue is we continue to operate in a model that is proven not to work. The education system has not evolved in hundreds of years and every good teacher in the world knows this.
I have spent 20 years in education and I no longer meet any teaches who defend the current system.
This doesn’t mean that there aren’t great schools in the world offering progressive education. But as an institution it has failed and continues to fail.
Respect Varies
While there is a worldwide problem with educational efficacy, some countries treat their teachers better.
According to Study.com, their research compared worldwide data on salary, respect and class size.
Salary Winners: South Korea, Spain, Canada, Portugal, Turkey Losers: Hungary, Chile, Slovak Republic, Czech Republic
Respect Winners: China, Greece, Turkey, South Korea Losers: Italy, Czech Republic, Brazil, Israel
Class Size Winners (Smallest Classes): Belgium, Greece, Norway, Portugal Losers (Largest Classes): Brazil, Chile, South Korea, Indonesia
This isn’t different from most professions where societies value roles differently.
But what stands out to me here is that we should be valuing teachers more than any other profession.
Teachers spend more time with our children than any other group. In some instances, teaches spend more time with the children than the parents. But we treat them like babysitters, paying them poorly and taking them for granted.
I know what I would do if I were in charge of the worldwide education system.
If I Were King
I have worked with governments in Asia and the Middle East on the development of their education systems. I sat on numerous higher education school boards and I ran a very progressive school in Bali. I’ve hired well over a hundred teachers and reviewed thousands of CVs over the years. I also often speak on the state of education.
Someone asked me once what I would do if I was in charge of the education system.
I first said that if I had a button that could immediately implode the entire education system, I would push it without hesitation.
Then I explained that if I were King of the World — of course I would be benevolent — I would do two things:
- I would at a minimum double all teachers’ salaries.
- I would get rid of the bottom 10% of all teachers.
I have managed and worked with teachers for years. I have also taught the one-off class so I understand what teachers go through albeit in a limited way. It befuddles me that we don’t give teachers the highest respect.
I feel teaching is far and away the most honorable and important profession that exists.
At the same time, however, I would get rid of the bottom 10%. Like any profession, there are simply people who should no longer be teaching. Some never should have become teachers in the first place.
Here is what I find most surprising when I share this with other teachers. Almost categorically every teacher says that they would get rid of 20–30% of people who are teaching.
I was astounded the first time I heard this and thought it was just hyperbole. But I have heard it again and again over the years.
There is a problem within the teaching profession and even the teachers know it.
And it has a lot to do with tenure.
Tenure
We were hiring an Early Years teacher a few years ago. We thought we had found Mary Poppins. She was perfect in the interview and on paper. Our interviewing process is very thorough and we always included at least three people to speak with the candidates.
She was perfect. Until we saw her teach.
We had a few complaints the first week from parents but that is par for the course. Parents are always complaining. Usually this settled down but we continued to get more serious complaints about her style and approach. I had the Principal spend time in the classroom to observe her.
The children — 4 years in age — were coloring one day in an art session. The principal saw the teacher reprimand a child for coloring outside of the lines. She then took the child’s paper and showed her how to color within the lines.
If you don’t understand why this is a problem then you are probably part of the problem.
We continued the observations, provided feedback and ways for her to improve, eventually put her on probation and then we fired her within the first month.
This highlight a major issue in why the education system continues to flounder.
When you can’t fire someone because they aren’t doing their job then you are only going to be perpetuating mediocrity.
This hit home with me when we had a Middle School student who transferred to our school because he was having challenges in his school in the US. I was speaking to him one day about his experience and he shared about the first day of class at his old school. The teacher stood up in front of the children and the first thing he said was:
“I have tenure so I don’t care what you or your parents think.”
Giving tenure is a tragedy. This isn’t done in ever country and even within countries, certain provinces can have different rules. But in general tenure is offered worldwide.
There is good reason to provide tenure. It does protect the teacher from overly demanding parents and it also protects their right to free speech. I strongly support tenure at the university and higher education levels. But there is no reason to continue to keep it in the rest of the grades.
Support for tenure has been waning over the years in the US. But until there is a clear approach to tenure we will continue to see a system that by its nature will struggle with excellence.
A Degree Does Not a Good Teacher Make
Some of the best teachers I’ve ever worked with did not have educational degrees.
I am not opposed to these degrees. But a degree should not be a requirement to teach. I’ve met too many bad teachers with multiple degrees.
One of the worst teachers I ever worked with had multiple PhDs. She didn’t have a clue how to teach.
This again is an example where the system is perpetuating inherent limitations. It gives degrees believing this will make people good teachers. But then it arrogantly assumes that anyone without a degree can’t be a good teacher.
The role of a teacher is to connect with and inspire the child. Our world is filled with millions of uncertified teachers who can enrich the lives of children. This is why home- and world-schooling is such a great option as it allows children to learn from a much wider group of teachers.
There of course need to be filters and selection processes. But when I was running an international school in Bali, we had uncertified teachers from around the world and it was a richer environment for it. The government than decided that all teachers needed to be certified and it was a tragedy to see these wonderful resources cut off.
Bureaucracy is a killer of good learning.
The Big Picture
Education is the most important topic we can be discussing. It should be the foundation for our children along with good parenting and their social network.
Why do we continue to treat it with such disregard?
The education system needs to be addressing its own limitation of tenure, grading, testing and subject-oriented learning programs. The data is very clear what does and what doesn’t work. It isn’t debatable anymore.
Teachers also need to be playing a role to be improving the system. They are the most important voice in this discussion. Yes, they are unfortunately trapped in a broken system but they can be the agents of change to make it better.
Most importantly we need to be treating our teachers with respect. This starts with paying them more than we pay doctors and lawyers and bankers. This is just madness when we consider our children are far and away our most precious possessions.
Let’s continue to have a healthy discussion on making our education system better.
Thank you for listening.
Please share your views and comments as to what we can be doing to improve this situation for teachers.
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