The Teacher Job Description Does Not Change

The job of a Teacher stays the same no matter who won the Presidency.

Last Tuesday, the inevitable happened. If you were paying attention, you knew who was going to win the Presidency long before last Tuesday. We spent months hoping we would be wrong, but it happened. And, now we have no choice but to move forward and hope for the best.

But, this isn’t a doom and gloom piece. There is no reason for that in education. Truthfully, there is no time for that either.

In education world, there are already rumors about the demise of the Department of Education. Sure, it could happen. But, it is equally important to remember that the Federal Department of Education was really founded by President Carter in 1979. Before that, it was run mostly by each State. Let’s face it; states have been in control of the climate of public education anyway. Teaching in New York is far different than teaching in Florida. So, the perceived challenges of a the potential closing of the Federal Department doesn’t make life all that different for educators.

The point is that the job description of teachers doesn’t change no matter what happens. Public Education has been under attack for a long time now. Books are being challenged in local school districts. Words like “indoctrination” are being used to attack the institution. The new President will not change those challenges. They’ll still be there. They’ve always been there.

It doesn’t change our job, not even a little.

Our job is to educate kids. That doesn’t change because of the new president. It doesn't change if the Federal Department of Education gets shut down. It doesn’t change no matter what challenges are thrown our way.

We must teach kids the skills necessary to thrive in the world. We must teach them to read. We must teach them to write. We must teach those critical thinking skills that will allow them to consume media, detect fact from fiction, and to formulate their own opinion.

We must foster a passion for literacy and for them to question the world around them.

We must find new practices that will lead to us teaching better, more efficiently. We must make curriculum relevant to the world the kids face today and the one they will enter into later.

We must continue the never ending, Roadrunner-like chase with technology, the advent of Artificial Intelligence, and social media. We have to figure out a way to blend all of this useful technology without losing the humanity of education and without sacrificing those critical thinking skills that we must teach them.

We must continue to explore ways to allow kids to demonstrate their mastery of concepts. We must continue to reform outdated education practices. We must continue to strive for a truly differentiated education so that all students can learn.

We must continue to find ways to close achievement gaps, make poverty less impactful on learning.

The public education field not only has to continue to improve all of those academic components, but it must continue to be a place for all students to learn, all students to be themselves, and all students to feel valued. We must offer food programs, after school activities, sports, the arts, and any other area of interest a kid may have.

We have to give kids the opportunity to be well-rounded individuals who value academic excellence as well as passions outside of the classroom.

The public education system does all of that.

Teachers do all of that.

We’ve done it forever and that will not change.

There is always this hope about children growing up and doing better than we did, that they are the future.

That hope is real.

It is real because teachers arm kids with the skills that will allow them to do better. We cannot lose sight of the fact that we do all of that and we do it well. The President position has never had an impact on the job we have to do with our kids in our classrooms.

Sure, there will be controversy. There will be rumors and challenges from the private sector. There will be the same, ridiculous book challenges, curriculum challenges that there have been for the past decade.

All of that is just noise that we need to shut off by closing our classroom doors and doing what we always do.

We are teachers of skills, not causes. We always have been. That job will never change. And, it’s just as important to focus on that now as it was in any point in history.

We have a job to do. We are good at it. We will always do that job well, no matter who is in charge.