A Profession in Crisis
The pandemic notwithstanding, if 25 percent of our nation's doctors were planning to quit the profession, it would constitute a national crisis. If my neighbor Amazon got word that one in four of their professional employees were going to walk away, it would be a disaster. Indeed, if any profession or employer had that much of their workforce ready to walk away, not for "better jobs," but because their current job was too dangerous, stressful, or demoralizing, it would be time to call in the calvary.
According to a recent poll of public school K-12 teachers, a full 27 percent say they are considering leaving the profession due to the the pandemic. This is on top of pre-pandemic polling that found that half of all teachers were already considering a job change because of low pay, bad working conditions, lack of respect, and an ongoing degradation of learning conditions for students. This is not a new crisis, it's an old one on steroids.
In our state, there are, as far as I know, exactly zero plans to address this issue. The obvious answer of increasing play, bolstering psychological and mental health support, and providing more autonomy for educators to teach the way their students learn, is apparently not being seriously CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: A Profession in Crisis
