Teaching--Too Tough a Job for a Lifetime?

I’ve met a lot of teachers—from perky little blonds right out of school who just love children—to grumpy old men (and women) of forty who’ve been on the job way, way too long. Other than lawyers, teachers are the most cynical professionals I’ve ever met. Like lawyers, teachers have seen enough guilty go free and enough innocent hang.
Young teachers tend to agonize over failing students. They allow students to retake and retake tests until somehow they achieve a passing grade (don’t you wish your boss was as nice?). Experienced teachers can sound so bland when they mention that half the kids in this or that class are flunking.
A teacher I really liked, who taught honors, senior English classes and adjunct courses at college, was sitting in his classroom during that magic week in June when seniors are already gone. His feet were up on the desk; he was watching television. He grinned when I stuck my head in his door, “School wouldn’t be such a bad place if it weren’t for the students.”
Every time I tell that story to a teacher—at least to one who has taught more than five years--I get anything from a cynical snicker to a weary nod. None have ever expressed surprise or dismay. It is a shared feeling.
Listening to a principal, a superintendent, or an “educator” who is far removed from the classroom is like listening to a Congressman opine about the glories and sacrifices of war. Do you want facts? Talk to the guys in the trenches—privately, off the record.
I quit teaching in the 1960s and didn’t return for decades. I saw 129 students a day. I concluded that I had approximately three minutes a day for each kid. I.Q.s ranged from 85 to over 150. I defy man or angel to devise a single lesson plan that can cover that spread.
Some of my kids (I was in Junior High—then 7, 8 and 9th grade students) were simply waiting for the magic age of sixteen so they could walk. They were my real discipline problems. It was a rural district so some of my kids could look forward to taking over acres of rich muck land and making an excellent income out of it. They could imagine no reason why English, history or algebra was going to help them in any way. Neither could their parents.
Except for a precious few who had college aspirations, motivation was nil. When they would defiantly ask me why they needed English, I could only answer, “Someday you may visit a foreign country, like the United States, where it is spoken.” (We were in Michigan.)
I got tired of forcing the unwanted upon the unwilling. That is stressful (I gained fifty pounds in a year), and it is hopelessly discouraging. You feel like your life is such a waste. Even the occasional kid who tells you you matter isn’t enough to re-invigorate you.
(One of those kids, incidentally, whose I.Q. was over 150 and whose father really cared, is now president of the college I attended. He’s a rare case. A tour in Vietnam where he was a forward artillery spotter may have provided additional motivation.)
Maybe asking people to teach for thirty or more years is just too much. I recall reading something about Inca civilization. They divided life into three stages. From birth to 20, you were a learner. From 20 to 50 you were a producer/worker. At 50 you began to teach the learners whatever you had done all your life as a producer (men and women).
I know our society is far more sophisticated and technologically demanding than theirs was—but I wonder if the idea of NOT having “professional/life time teachers” isn’t a good one. Who can do a better job of teaching algebra, or economics, history or English—a 20 something fresh out of school or someone who worked with it all of his or her life?
There’s logic to the answer to that question. It doesn’t hurt that research shows people of grandparent age relate better to kids than do people in their twenties and thirties. Something has got to work better than the present system does.
Even beyond motivating parents to care (yesterday’s thought).