Your Back-To-School Messages Are Hurting Teachers
Retweeting chirpy clichés only puts more pressure on teachers — and ignores the real problems
Too many people outside of classrooms spend too much time telling people inside them what to do. Once you leave the classroom, it’s tempting to want to share all of your advice with others.
Trust me, as the 2015 National Teacher of the Year, I see the irony in writing this. Much like the overweight track coach sitting in the shade of a blistering Texas afternoon punctuating commands for runners with sips of iced tea, I feel I’ve reached a point where I have to admit that I’m not exactly part of the game I’m trying to coach.
As a grad student at Harvard, I have privilege that insulates me from the repercussions of certain opinions (and even from writing something like this). No district will censor me, “counsel” me, or reassign me for what I say.
This privilege means I have a responsibility to say things that others can’t. The realization hit home for me as I sat across from a teacher friend at lunch recently. I listened as she told me how she really wanted to quit teaching. Everything she said sounded so familiar.
Social media is where teaching starts to feel toxic.
