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Are we servants?


On Thu, 12 Dec 1996, David Dockstader wrote:

I used to laugh and wonder out loud how these students could function
at all. However, I quickly discovered it is no joke. These students
function just as poorly in the real world and will spend most of their
lives as little more than indentured servants.


Excuse me for picking up on part of your message. I agree with most
all of it, but this last sentence has implications that I'd like
to explore.

Are teachers any better off than those students you describe as being
destined to be `indentured servants'? We may be better paid, and have
better fringe benefits, but we are servants also.

Teachers serve students, taxpayers, administrators, and school
boards. They are judged not by peers knowledgeable in the subjects
taught, but by their inferiors. They are judged by students, who
know nothing about their field, and haven't their academic
education, experience, and maturity. They are judged by
administrators who usually know nothing about the subject the
teacher teaches. How many of your administrators could pass one of
your exams in physics, chemistry, or mathematics?

Teachers are not even members of a profession, in the strict legal
sense of the word. Teachers do not set the requirements for
admission to teaching. Teachers do not have the power to disbar an
incompetent from teaching. Those powers lie in the hands of others.

Teachers do not even determine the curriculum. Many must teach
under syllabi written by others. Some don't even have the right to
choose their own textbooks, only to choose from those on an
approved list.

Teachers cannot teach the subject matter they judge academically
sound, but must teach what someone else has decided they should
teach.

Teachers must serve on committees, which may recommend procedures
and policy. But the final decisions on these matters lies with
others.

Teachers have only fragile job security. A change of school
administration, or election of a new school board, could cause a
teacher to be sent packing, looking for another job.

So, I ask you, are we not servants?

In ancient Greece the education of children was entrusted to
slaves. Is it much different now? One big difference is that
teachers can quit, and take up some other line of work.

-- Donald

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Dr. Donald E. Simanek Office: 717-893-2079
Prof. of Physics Internet: dsimanek@eagle.lhup.edu
Lock Haven University, Lock Haven, PA. 17745 CIS: 73147,2166
Home page: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek FAX: 717-893-2047
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