The White Coat Ceremony and Elevating Teaching: A Noble Profession of a Higher Calling | Teachers' Letters to Bill Gates

The White Coat Ceremony and Elevating Teaching: A Noble Profession of a Higher Calling | Teachers' Letters to Bill Gates:

The White Coat Ceremony and Elevating Teaching: A Noble Profession of a Higher Calling

Posted on August 7, 2013by Teachers'LettersToBillGates

Dear William and Melinda,

Sunday I attended my son’s “White Coat Ceremony” at Tulane University Medical School. For those of you who were as ignorant as I, it is the ceremony first year med-school students go through when they receive their first white coat, signifying their entrance into the practice and profession of medicine.

The following quote taken from the ceremony program with a few subtle changes can refer to the teaching profession as well. We all must remember these words as we fight the survival of the body called education.

“One of the privileges of becoming a member of a profession such as [teaching] is that the body of the profession does not have to rely on outside sources for its regulation.

Just as the human body monitors each of its members, the organ systems, to ensure that they are not sick or injured and are functioning at highest capacity for the good of the body as a whole, so does the body of the [teaching] profession have the honor and responsibility of monitoring each of its members, each student, and each [teacher] to make sure that they are