Poll: Teachers Don't Get No Respect
People think respect has declined among teachers, administrators, students, and parents since they were in school.
“Anyone? Anyone?” a high-school teacher asks at the front of a classroom inFerris Bueller’s Day Off. His dazed students, popping bubble gum and falling asleep, gaze toward the front of the room, unaware a question has been posed. After a moment’s pause, the teacher answers his own question and drones on with his lecture while his students fight to stay awake.
This scene, set in 1986, doesn’t show much esteem for the teaching profession.(The movie doesn't have much regard for administrators, either. Ferris continually outsmarts the cartoonishly spiteful Principal Rooney.) And yet, a recent poll found that adults believe that people respect teachers and administrators even less now than then did in the past. While 79 percent of Americans said students respected teachers when they were in school, only 31 percent believe students respect teachers today, according to a Harris Poll of 2,250 American adults.
When they were in school, 91 percent of respondents said that parents and teachers respected each other, but when asked about today, only 49 percent said parents respect teachers and 64 percent said teachers respect parents.
Respondents continued to report a decline in trust between teachers and students: When they were in school, 86 percent said teachers respected students, but only 61 percent say that is true today. Eighty-eight percent said the administration respected teachers when they were in school, while 58 percent say that continues to be true in today’s schools.
Parents of school-aged children, who might be in the best position to judge the environment of today’s
