If you need help with your metaphors, toss me an e-mail – we can sort them out.

I’m cheaper than your local principal [I can't seem to get the government to pay me six figures] and, evidently, a bit more literate than your last instructor.

You should be a principal!

As for teaching being a profession, I don’t actually think it’s a clear question. And, it may sound like a cop out to say that it depends on your definitions (of teaching — notice how I’m very clear about when I mean “classroom teachers” since there are other teachers out there; and of “professional”) but our precise use of language makes a difference.

For example, you contrast “teachers” with “non-educators” but my point is there’s a whole area in the middle. Not all “educators” are “classroom teachers in a school setting.” And, issues of “classroom teaching” do not, in and of themselves, comprise the entirety of issues in “education.” Certainly it’s the most *common* situation, but by no means the only form/environment of education out there. I’m not diminishing the value of what classroom teachers do, but someone’s gotta keep hitting the point that there’s more to it than that!

So, it’s difficult for me to comment on “professionalism” without writing a book, since I can think of several different ways that word could be used. But, I love this quotation from a Canadian author that goes something along the lines of, “With good teachers, a compulsory curriculum is irrelevant. With bad teachers, no amount of compulsion will do the trick.” (Ken Osborne wrote in “Education: A guide to the Canadian School Debate”) I think we can agree that the teacher is infinitely more important than the curriculum, and one can argue whether teacher certification programs actually do a good job of getting the right people in the “profession.”

Your analogy about the doctor is a good one, and more well-developed than I’ve ever heard it expressed. But what I’ll add is, maybe the manufacturer of the scalpel (or inventor or designer) does have useful information for the doctor on its use, as well as caregivers (nurses, homecare workers or family members) who have experience with after-surgery care since they know what effect the surgeon’s choice of scalpel had on an individual.

I know we all write from our own experiences, and it’s only in sharing them that we can realize that what we take for granted as “normal” may in fact not be so.

As a non-traditional educator myself, (I have a couple of years of non-traditional classroom experience, but chose a career in tutoring instead) I have a different skill set to bring to the table than classroom teachers, but these are still skills related to teaching students, and a deep understanding of how people learn. I’m sure the best piano teachers know a thing or two about confidence-building, motivation, and getting the best out of their students. Driving instructors put their money where their mouth is, potentially putting themselves in physical danger if they can’t guide a student through a difficult “learning experience.”

Many teachers don’t realize that there are a whole whack of us out there training, mentoring, educating and guiding learners who aren’t subject to educrats, buzzwords, politicians and learning fads. Many of us are allowed to develop our “teaching” skills in relative peace, and we’re the ones you guys need showing you an alternate view of what teaching could be like, if you’ll let us. :)

And… surely everyone has a “part” to play. But, here’s the thing… either you think teachers are professionals or you you don’t. If you do, then teachers likely have some specialized knowledge that non teachers don’t have. Or, although it would be politically incorrect to say so… perhaps teaching is not really a profession, but a generalized task like babysitting… some babysitters are better than others, but a warm, adult body in the room with a bit of sense and access to 911 is pretty much all you need for a night out.

If you believe that teaching is a profession with a specialized skill set that must be acquired, then the question is what does it mean to have specialized knowledge? I wouldn’t presume to tell a doctor how to do his surgery. However since it is my body that he’s working on, I do think I have the right to be informed and to do research to understand my conditions and my options better. I have the right to demand the best care and to vote with my feet if I’m not getting it. I also think that a doctor benefits if he listens to me, he may find out important information that he couldn’t find out without listening. If he’s really good at his job, I won’t tell him anything about his profession he doesn’t know, but I may tell him something about me… and he needs that information as well. In that sense, I have a part to play in my health care. However, the placement that I have in a discussion about my health is not a deciding role in which scalpel to use in an operation or what anesthesia to use to put me under.

In education, that is exactly the kind of role that non-educators who want to be in the game (for sleasy or altruistic reasons) play. In my view, the fact that non educators consider themselves expert enough to make policy is related to the fact that the teaching profession is historically a female dominated one that deals with children.

I’ve had the privilege to work for an unnamed, but well known for-profit educational institution that goes into failing public schools, takes them over and initiates their own curriculum. It was and from what I’ve heard around, is still run by people who had no idea how a classroom works. I was hired by someone who had a background in publishing to create curriculum for an age I’d never taught… In my view, neither of us were qualified for what we were doing at the time.

In any case, their program was a mess. The reason they could continue to garner the big bucks is because they were taking over schools in collapse, where the population was uneducated, disenfranchised and powerless… I think I heard somewhere that they may be going bankrupt, but that’s 13 years down the road… it’s a good run for a start up.

So… maybe I’m jaded. ;-)

ps. In fairy tales and as it relates to their refreshingly tactless honesty, children tell it like it is. But, in the real world… the emperor is a naked sports, music or media icon and the children don’t know he’s naked… they only know they want to be him.

Top-down implementation without support from below is not a discussion.

HOW outside ideas from “outsiders” are implemented is a different discussion than WHETHER these ideas should be allowed to get in to the system in the first place.

Your argument simply doesn’t apply to people like Matthew, me, parents, tutors and other paraprofessionals who don’t really stand much to gain from telling you what to do in your classroom and how to do it, other than creating a better learning experience for the students . . . which I know is a teacher’s goal, too. (And, to be clear, we wouldn’t really presume to do such a thing.)

Believe me, you have every right to be pissed off at someone coming in and micromanaging or setting policy that simply doesn’t work in practice. Who wouldn’t be? But, that’s not true educational reform, and that’s not the entirety of this larger discussion, which is, “Do we deserve to participate in the discussion?”

I think we can all agree, slimy people are slimy people, and they’re everywhere. Ambitious people are everywhere in every field. That’s not unique to this discussion.

To me, the fact that you have people forcing programs and policies down your throat is only further evidence that the system is broken, NOT that people shouldn’t be designing new educational programs and testing out new ideas and NOT that classroom teachers need to “circle the wagons” to protect a fundamentally flawed educational model.

A general may have been a foot soldier at one time, but wasn’t it a child that pointed out that the Emperor had no clothes?