Study and Benevolence

Abstract

For thirty-five years, I have been a teacher. I think continually of teachers and the work that we do. We stand not only vulnerable in front of hundreds of students daily, but also stand defenseless before the public eye, serving as easy prey to politicians and government bureaucrats whose motives are, at best, not pure. William Pinar (2004, 30) writes, “We teachers are conceived by others, by the expectations and fantasies of our students and by the demands of parents, administrators, policymakers, and politicians …” Subject to the contumelies of everyone who knows better, teachers are regularly castigated in public for too many real and illusory social ills and national failures for which teachers could not possibly be responsible but for which nevertheless, teachers are made to bear responsibility. There seems to be no end to the accusations maligning teachers and their work, no criticism too harsh to aim at the schools and their staff, and yet daily it is off to work we go. I am finishing my sixth decade. Every third thought is of the brave. I have, after all, been a teacher for thirty-five years. I know what they say about me, but I take the time now to consider what it is that I have been doing, and that, I suspect, I will continue to do for the next few years.