Messaging counts!

I had really hoped that through this pandemic the overall respect for what educators and systems do would improve. During out of class learning, there were more than enough parents who said something like, “I can’t keep up with my own 2 children, how do teachers do it with a class of 30?” I’m not sure whether that sentiment will continue on the positive path or instead only be fleeting.

Why? Why is so hard to convince the general public of the importance of educators?

For some, it is because they “think” they know what a teacher does since, they did go to school! They look at holidays or pay or workday or PD Days and believe that teachers have it pretty good. They choose the worst teacher they ever had and evaluate the entire teaching population based on that individual. Pretty easy to be negative! What they don’t see is behind the scenes, the hours of preparation and marking, the volunteer time and the stress of being responsible in many ways of raising someone else’s child. They also don’t see the glamour parts of the job like, cleaning up poop or being told to “F” off or being threatened by a bullying parent. No, they just think that teaching is a 8:30-3:30 job with weekends off and a lot of holidays!

Part of the issue is that teaching is experiential and unless you do it, you really don’t have a full understanding of the requirements. I would always forewarn new administrators coming right out of the classroom that what they thought administration was and what it was going to be like were very different. Most didn’t totally believe me, but they soon realized that administration like teaching was also experiential and, “You don’t know what you don’t know!” I always thought it was a great advantage for me as a superintendent to have taught from K-12, including Provincial Achievement Test grades and Diploma Exam subjects. So given that educational positions are so experiential, I think it will continue to be difficult to communicate what they do, to achieve a better understanding from the general public. So then how does education get the recognition is so richly deserves?

This is where I believe messaging counts both from an individual perspective and from teacher organizations. My daughter is a teacher and it gave me great pride that she chose the profession. However, I was dismayed at colleagues who thought she should choose a different profession because of the “state of education.” Do we really want to thwart our children’s passions because of the job is tough? It is not a good message to our own children and their friends that teaching isn’t highly regarded by us within the profession for a career. If we want the general public to have respect for educators then we must have the same respect for ourselves and clearly demonstrate that to our children and our students.

Have you ever been around a person that is always negative? It is not much fun! Pretty soon you either try to find a way to limit contact with that individual or simply go tone deaf. Unfortunately, we have those individuals in the profession too! Their constant whining that nothing is good enough or that the sky is always falling doesn’t provide much confidence in the system. There are people out there who are just waiting to shove the dagger in a little deeper and be able to say, “See educators are just whiners and certainly don’t deserve our respect and support!” Individual messaging counts!

Social media can be a breeding ground for negativity and especially now with this pandemic. While I’m sure that most people believe they are just advocating for themselves and their students, the negative overtones are front and center. Don’t get me wrong, there are still a far greater number of positive posts from teachers, but we know that most people will tend to gravitate to the negative if it is out there. I don’t know the exact line between advocating and complaining but somehow we need to bring forth more positive messages. Always try to advocate by telling the great things that are happening in the school or system rather than looking for something or someone to blame or to fault.

My point for individuals but especially for organizations is that the messaging can’t always be negative. You are not winning the battle if you consistently communicate that nothing is ever good enough. It would be most welcome if politicians, ALL POLITICIANS, led this movement to acknowledge strengths and good decisions rather than look for the negative and simply criticize everything on the other side.

When I was a superintendent, Alberta Education officials knew me pretty well as being a straight shooter. They knew that when decisions were made that supported student learning, I was their biggest fan. They also understood that when those decisions were contrary to what was best for students, staff and the system, I was their toughest critic. It would not have been unfair for me to only be their toughest critic when they deserved accolades too!

I would consider myself a liberal-minded conservative. I have not been pleased with some of decisions this government has made but I also wasn’t enamored by many of the decisions of the previous government. However, I can’t say enough good things about the work they did with curriculum. Contrary to popular thought, it wasn’t political in nature, it did have great stakeholder input and the timelines were very acceptable. I say this because even though I’m not a supporter of the previous government, they did some great work. All of their policies or decisions weren’t bad, in fact many of them were very strong. I’m guessing that when the dust settles, we will see that this government provided some positive outcomes as well.

The key point is that we can’t continually be negative and only look for things that are wrong and hope that our stature as a profession is elevated and ultimately the learning environment for our students is enhanced. Every decision made by a government or board, or educator can and likely should be scrutinized (ensuring you truly know all the facts and the context). However, if the comments on those decisions are only negative, then you’ve likely lost your ability to be objective and are missing your “fair” quotient! I don’t believe we should be silent, but in order to be a strong and successful advocate, it needs to be done without constantly pointing fingers and playing the blame game. Hint…eventually nobody listens to you!!!

As the saying goes, you will always attract more bees with honey than vinegar so, let’s use a little more honey going forward!