OPINION: The Case for Going into Teaching

By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Teachers start reporting back to work in the next couple of weeks, and for the first time in two years I won’t be among them. They are, nonetheless, very much on my mind.

I am thinking of my former professional colleagues in the social studies department at James Monroe High School who are putting together wholly new history classes with the long-delayed approval of new standards.

The adjustments they are surely making to the cell phone policy which last year got off to a great start, but by winter break was not working as well as hoped.

And the challenges they face in trying to make the Curriculum Instructional Program (CIP) work. The program, which has helped a number of districts enjoy substantial academic improvements, got off to a rough start, but efforts are underway to address lessons learned last year.

The teachers I’m newly thinking about this year, however, are those who have yet to earn a license and start their careers.

Teacher shortages, concerns about pay, working environments that are not unfairly called hostile, and parents and school boards that have blamed teachers for everything from low student test scores to interfering with “parents’ rights” are just some of the reasons that teachers are both unhappy with their jobs and losing the trust of the public as a whole.

These challenges, which are long-running, are forcing many college students to rethink entering teaching as a career.

And they’re among the reason that on multiple occasions I have been guilty of encouraging bright students to pursue greener pastures outside education.

At lunch on Thursday with Matt Eberhardt, Fredericksburg City Schools’ deputy superintendent, I was forced to rethink my motivations for steering kids away from education.

Paraphrasing by dining partner’s argument: If we don’t encourage our best students to go into teaching, then we’re already in a death-spiral.

He was absolutely correct.

A New Conversation

Why have I discouraged bright students from pursuing teaching? Because from a policy level, the classroom level, and as a parent I have witnessed first-hand the profound challenges facing our educators.

Not the difficulties associated with teaching young minds — that’s surely hard enough. But the difficulties imposed on teachers by administrators, governments, and many parents who either don’t want to accept that their child, while smart, deserves that C or D grade, or they don’t want to accept that their child’s problems are not caused by the teachers but often by their unwillingness to hold up their end of the child-rearing bargain.

No one understands these pressures better than teachers themselves. And they are doing all they can to hold it together in a job that is too often asking the impossible while denying the critical support and materials necessary to give teachers a fair shot at reaching high goals.

Given these challenges, it does not surprise that a 2024 survey by Pew Research exploring teachers’ job satisfaction found that “Only a third of teachers say they’re extremely or very satisfied with their job overall.”

It is surprising, however, that that same survey found that 71% said they were “extremely or very satisfied” with their teacher colleagues.

I fully understand both extremes uncovered in that poll. Like my colleagues, I had plenty of things at James Monroe that — to put it politely — got under my skin.

However, I also came to see — and quite quickly — that my colleagues were extraordinary. This is not hyperbole.

Not every colleague was extraordinary, of course — no large organization is stacked top to bottom with superior talent — but most everyone that I came into contact with was laser-focused on the same goal. Every day, despite the challenges, bringing our level best to provide our students a sound educational experience.

The abilities and skills of these teachers has largely been lost in the ongoing wars over education.

We need a new conversation about public schools that recenters on these teachers, and motivates the next generation to follow in their footsteps.

Build on What Works

For all its problems, public schools are filled with talented teachers who year-in-and-year-out do the impossible with whoever is placed in their classrooms, and regardless of whether budgets are flush (rarely) or empty (most of the time).

What makes teachers successful often comes down to what brought them there in the first place. Education is “missional.”

Regardless what parents may think, despite the barbs that politicians hurl at teachers just to pick-up a few votes, and in spite of the sometimes-horrendous leadership at the school board and administrative levels, these teachers put it all in the rearview mirror and focus on what matters — the students in their classrooms.

So if we can’t agree on what the cause of our educational challenges are, we should be able to get behind the reality that those in the classrooms are doing challenging work in spite of the barriers they must navigate every day. And they are doing extraordinary work.

When we focus on that, we can find the strength to encourage the best and the brightest to pursue careers in education. And we can do so with enthusiasm.

As these people then join the teaching ranks and begin the climb from classroom teacher, to building administrator, to central office leaders, they will become critical players in finding solutions to all the distractions that have moved the public discussion about education far, far away from really matters.

The priceless relationship between a teacher and a child.

It’s every bit as important as the relationship between a parent and a child.

Let’s encourage the best and the brightest to embrace the challenge of teaching. The work is, at times, near impossible; the pressures enormous; the workload overbearing. Despite these challenges, the next generation of teachers will find supportive colleagues ready to move them toward success.

And perhaps, just maybe, the rest of us having encouraged the best and brightest to pursue education will begin to have our faith in the most-important institution for shaping the country’s future restored.

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