So the big news last week was not that I had somehow convinced myself to volunteer to be assistant coach on one of my sons’ little league teams. As unexpected as that was—and, believe me, it was about as expected as the announcement that The Mailbox has hired an Elvis impersonator to edit the magazine—the big news impacting the teaching community last week was the release of The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher.
Results described within the survey were front page in many newspapers, and made a splash on television broadcasts. You may have even read about it on this fancy Internet thing.
The most starkly unsettling finding in the survey was teacher job satisfaction, which has reached its lowest level since the survey series began more than two decades ago. Just 44% of respondents are satisfied in their jobs. Coupled with this growing lack of job satisfaction is the survey’s other dramatic finding—more teachers than ever before are planning on leaving the profession in the next few years. Twenty-nine percent of teachers say they’ll probably look for a new career.
Where does this motivation to change careers come from? In 2006, the survey found that eight percent of those teachers asked felt their jobs were not secure. Today, that number is an impressive 34%.
How are you feeling out there in the so-called trenches? If you’re experiencing the sorts of pressures other teachers are experiencing, causing them to reconsider their career choice, what do you think can be done to change perceptions? How you feel about your job is the result of your interactions with large and disparate groups—students, colleagues, administrators, parents, community leaders, politicians, pundits, family, and more.
How would you address these groups? What would you say in order to feel differently about how your role is perceived?
At The Mailbox, it’s our job to help make your life easier and assist you the best we can to make a difference in the quality of learning of children. We invite you to speak your mind.
I think that since so much more is being expected from the teachers that the day is not going to be long enough to do everything. Also when our having a job is based on the score of our students makes it very frustrating.
I second Linda. more and more, the focus is on numbers, not on teaching.