Those who can do, teach.
When your profession is given an appreciation day or week, chances are it’s society’s way of saying sorry for not appreciating you the way we know we should the rest of the year. Alas, teacher appreciation week — A week that doesn’t come close to making up for it.
Yet this year seems a bit different as the world — AKA every parent who (a) is attempting to homeschool or (b) is awed by how their kids’ educators are innovating — draws the conclusion that maybe teachers can do a thing or two.
As a previous educator and a professional who now works with educators, here’s what I know teachers can [and must be able to] do.
Communications. We create organized, engaging content, from lab writeups to social media highlights to slide decks, that is scaffolded according to our diverse audiences (students, parents, community partners, funders, district leaders, and more). We excel at public speaking and storytelling due to the unique complexities of engaging youth.
Data Analytics. We thrive in the data. We set and measure strategic, aggressive, standards-aligned goals, not only for ourselves but for each student, and then design and deliver on the plans to meet them. We regularly report on and analyze goal-related metrics, pivoting to drive outcomes.
Diversity & Inclusion. We live and breathe educational equity, knowing the realities of barriers such as poverty, racism, ableism, sexism, and the many other unjust obstacles to our students’ achievement. We are comfortable and energized in D&I-related discussions as we’ve been trained on everything from culturally responsive practices to the legality of accommodations.
Emotional Intelligence. We often put on various hats — social work, customer service, career counselor, etc. — to address student and family concerns through empathy and local resource mapping. We’ve mastered building trusted interpersonal relationships across diverse boundaries, across ages, experiences, and more, knowing the power of active listening.
Financial Management & Development. We manage sizable budgets of federal, state, and corporate grants and funding for programs, equipment, student travel, etc. At the same time, we are underresourced and our successful operations depend on us rolling out large-scale fundraising initiatives, activating students, families, communities, personal networks, etc.
Innovation & Design Thinking. We essentially run our own businesses, with autonomy to set our classroom’s vision, strategy, and roadmap to best serve our students. This allows us to constantly identify and solve the unique problems in our classrooms. We are known to experiment with and test new ideas — from management styles to curriculum approaches to tech tools — pivoting based on student feedback. We are agile problem-solvers, as evidenced by 2020s nearly overnight switch to virtual learning.
People Leadership. We measure our success by our ability to grow and develop others — It is why many of us went into teaching and the reason many stay. From our students to our student teachers, we are constantly partnering with others to set rigorous, measurable goals and provide mentorship and accountability to reach them. We lean into our natural growth mindset and belief in everyone’s ability to learn and become anything.
Project Management. We deliver on a series of mini-projects each year — namely unit plans. But realistically, who amongst us doesn’t also wear other project and program hats — Leading initiatives from student council to ACT testing to the community/industry advisory board to the musical. We have calm confidence when it comes to influencing others to get behind an initiative and applying organizational savvy and technical skills to deliver.
Tech Support & Creation. We solve for tech glitches and gaps (now at a greater scale than ever) and we research and integrate the latest, most effective, and affordable technologies, staying on the cutting edge of ed-tech trends. All the while, we build tech — from applying UX/UI design skills when creating class websites to developing videos for our flipped classrooms.
And to top it off, we can ‘do’ our content area. We deliver high-quality curriculum by being highly proficient in our content areas, with many of us having content-specific advanced degrees and work experience. When my science colleagues and I developed student projects and ran lab experiments, our experience conducting laboratory research and earning advanced scientific degrees ensured the learning, engagement, and safety of students.
So what can we conclude this teacher appreciation week?
That he who stated “Those who can’t do, teach” was either misquoted, didn’t know any teachers, or tried teaching and failed miserably.
Teaching is not a fallback. It is for those who can do (and love) their content area while also having the ability to do the above plus more. If you know a teacher well, you know this list is just the surface, and that because of all these skills, they chose to teach.
From a past teacher to all those still hustling in their real or virtual classrooms: Thank you for dedicating all you can do — your skills, talents, and drive, which could allow you to thrive in nearly any industry and role — to a career with barely a week of appreciation.
It’s past time we move beyond appreciation.
Let’s make teaching the ‘it job’. Let’s idolize and incentivize our current and future educators, making them the lawyers and doctors of the next generation. Let’s flip the narrative by sending our best and brightest into the job that requires they can do it all.
Let’s rewrite the catchphrase: Those who can do — and can do it all pretty damn well mind you — teach.
