A Teacher's Value=A Mother's Value

Those who "demean" the nature of, intensity of, and dedication required throughout each day, every day by Classroom Teachers are using their childhood-perspective brain.  Take your adult self to school now and shadow one regular teacher for one full day...your brain will update!

Children have no idea what goes into good and dedicated parenting until they grow up and have reason to "review" revisit and revise the nature and calling of Parenthood (...usually when they have a child of their own, or become a teacher, social worker, family counselor).

The same "oversight" occurs with the general public with regard to Classroom Teaching...and those who engage this calling.   We tritely call these altruistic and conscientious adults "teachers." We easily demean their dedication to learning and young human beings by using a little "t" "teachers."

And we infantilize them by talking down to them and about them because the great majority of them are women who are expert in adapting to children's needs... in multiple ways (vocabulary and tone and pitch).  As informed and naturally-adaptive parents use their child-tuned voice to speak with and encourage learning at home, teachers do the same in the classroom.  And as we stereotype seniors by talking down to them...or very loudly because we think they are as a class hard of hearing, we do the same to teachers ... we demean the nature of their work (without even knowing the nature of their work-not from an adult perspective that is, or an informed perspective to be sure!)

Yes, teachers are bewildered right now in Wisconsin and Indiana...as we should all be all over the planet...because the amount of scorn leveled at "teachers" comes from a few not very honorable sources:

1. unupdated childhood (an adolescent) perspectives on the actual nature of teachers' work 
2. personal projections from other "workers" who mechanically go each day to do a "job" in which they are not personally and professionally engaged
3. unfulfilled wannabees who detect a mismatch between the person they are becoming and the value of the career they've invested in already in so many ways (not to mention the house and the car payment and all the gadgets and loans and credit card debt ...just going through what seems to be the motions in order to get paid and then pay out of all the stuff they've acquired).

As professionals (Masters are earned in five years of entry), Classroom Teachers have a NAME/LABEL problem we need to address:
... brains are funny things. Brains categorize and then the human behavioral system is tempted to think of all entries in the category as if they are all alike.  Hmmmmm.  "teacher":  my mommy, my daddy, granny, swimming instructor, piano tutor, day care assistant, lady at the gym nursery where daddy drops me off while he works out?

Each of these role exemplars are readily thought of as "teachers" regardless of dramatic and organic differences among them in the nature of their work and relationship with a learner, not to mention that professional classroom teachers engage a large group of very individual learners who are learning to learn.

As professionals, Classroom Teachers have a Public Acknowledgement problem we need to address:
... As we stereotype seniors by discounting the background, inculturation, training, and experience that got them where they are now (and all the mastery and wisdom acquired along the way which we could now benefit from if we purposefully pursued inquiry/learning outside the formal workplace to systematically learn from the experts who have earned their retirement from 'on demand performance")  we do the same to teachers.  Our hierarchical government, and the underinformed media, and the general public demean the nature of Classroom Teachers' work from insufficient inquiry, minimal interviewing, non-existent dialogue and shadowing.

Classroom Teachers have relied on professional unions to do the speaking, representing, bargaining, and marketing about the nature of our work...perhaps we each need to speak up for ourselves and the nature of our preparation, commitment, and career paths more purposefully, publicly, intentionally, systematically and collaboratively.