By Diana Burroughs
5/17/05 -- As of 1998, nearly half of all primary and secondary school teachers in the United States were 45 or older, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Most of the educators in this group were part of a wave of young teachers hired across the nation in the 1970s. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the percentage of young teachers in the profession fell steadily as the percentage of older ones steadily grew larger. And now, as the once-young teachers near retirement, the teaching profession is once again opening its doors to a large wave of new hires.
But who will these new teachers be? What happens when a profession suddenly becomes much easier to enter?
While this shifting demographic may encourage more students to pursue teaching across the board, it is also possible that the profession’s widening accessibility will attract students who anticipate or encounter problems with getting jobs in other fields.
This means that, unless something is done to make teaching a more attractive field for society’s best and brightest, the quality of the average applicant to teaching positions may fall noticeably over the next decade.
So what can we do, as citizens of our society, to ensure that the next big influx of young teachers is composed largely of bright, motivated, caring individuals, rather than indifferent ones who have pursued teaching for no reason other than widespread job availability? While the work of teacher unions represents a vital aspect of the drive to improve conditions in the teaching profession, I believe that there is even more we can do.
That’s why I co-founded TeachersCount, a non-profit organization committed to garnering recognition and respect for teachers, in addition to supplying information, services, and resources to current and aspiring educators.
It is my belief -- and a central facet of my organization’s creed -- that teachers and the teaching profession do not receive their due respect and recognition and that correcting this problem is an entirely necessary step for the continuing health of our society.
By way of example, a recent article on this subject in The Christian Science Monitor quoted an Ivy League graduate who became a school teacher and whose colleagues frequently said things like: “You went to Princeton. Why aren’t you a lawyer?”
As you are no doubt aware, views such as these are not anomalies. In the minds of many, the very word “teacher” has something of a homespun feel and carries with it a not-quite-professional connotation.
Many seem to believe that, just because teachers accept meager pay to push up their sleeves and make a difference one child at a time, their accomplishments are not on par with those of their comparably educated peers who carry home hefty paychecks from banks and large corporations. It is attitudes like these that can poison our education system and deter bright, young minds from entering a profession that urgently requires their help.
In most cases, teachers, out of passion for education and concern for the well-being of children, sacrifice the possibility of earning much more money in another profession, and this is a sacrifice that deserves to be recognized. That’s why I have made our social marketing campaign a top priority of TeachersCount.
Our campaign encompasses all of the TeachersCount programs that strive, in one way or another, to improve public notions of the teaching profession. The newest addition to this body of programs is our collaborative project with Hallmark which has produced free teaching-themed e-cards and a web feature called, “Ten Ways to Thank a Teacher.” (Curious? Check out TeachersCount.org or go to the “Ideas” section at Hallmark.com.)
While the e-cards and the teacher-appreciation strategies constitute small ways to improve the experiences of teachers one step at a time, it is our hope that the cumulative effect of these small steps will be a marked one and, moreover, that the effort will draw attention to the larger social cause of elevating the status of the teaching profession.
ýt was with this same goal in mind that we at TeachersCount mobilized celebrities to spread the word about teachers via a national advertising campaign. Actor Tony Shalhoub, New York University President John Sexton, and soccer champion Alecko Eskandarian appeared alongside their favorite teachers in a series of ads bearing the slogan, “Behind every famous person is a fabulous teacher.”
These ads will appear throughout the coming months in national Time Inc., publications, such as Time, People, In Style, Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated, Money, and Fortune.
My hope is that people will see the ads and reflect on the impact their teachers, past or present, have made on their lives. I am especially hopeful that young people will take to heart the idea that teachers hold positions of great import and sway.
The three well-known figures in these images are not alone in their feelings toward their favorite teachers. Ask almost any successful adult and he or she will identify one or more teachers without whose influence they would have never accomplished what they did.
And when you think about all the millions of inspiring educators who stand or have stood behind the millions of successful people whose accomplishments drive and shape our society, the message is clear -- teachers count.