Teachers Should Just Say No to Cheap Talk & Lip Service
by Frederick M. Hess • Jul 7, 2014 at 8:38 am
Cross-posted from Education Week
Cross-posted from Education Week
Teachers get lots of lip service, misty-eyed declarations of admiration, and cloying tributes. These blanket hugs are ritually offered up to three million plus teachers, without qualifiers or challenges. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has insisted, "I believe that [teachers] are absolutely the unsung heroes of our society." Actor Matt Damon told a Save Our Schools rally, "I flew overnight...and came down here because I really had to tell you all in person that I think you all are awesome." Or, as Michelle Collay put it in Everyday Teacher Leadership, "Teaching is not just another job. Choosing to work with children and youth on a daily basis is something elevated to superhuman status."
These platitudes are the junk food of speechmaking. They seem insincere, like the empty words of car salesmen (even when they're not). But there's a bigger problem. This isn't how we talk to professionals. It's how we talk to Cub Scouts or T-ball players, because we think they're cute and too fragile for tougher stuff.
You don't lard buckets of mushy sentiment on people you really respect. This verbal tic is the opposite of respect. In fact, it infantilizes teachers and crowds out respect. Real respect is earned. It carries an edge. It's not given away freely or casually. It's a conversation between equals. And we usually don't feel obliged to shower banal praise on our equals.
All this happy talk is insincere, anyway. We know this, because nobody honestly believes all of America's three million plus teachers are awesome or heroic. As one decorated teacher told me, "I am so sick of all this teacher heroism crap, already. I'm a professional, not a hero." Saying this isn't meant as an attack on teachers: after all, nobody thinks that every doctor, lawyer, professor, or cop is good or noble, either. Even the voluble Matt Damon doesn't think that every actor or screenwriter in Hollywood is "awesome." How do I know? Well, a few years ago, Damon slammed screenwriter Tony Gilroy, saying of Gilroy's Bourne Ultimatumscript, "This is a career-ender. I mean, I could put this thing up on eBay and it would be game over for that Teachers Should Just Say No to Cheap Talk & Lip Service :: Frederick M. Hess:
