Teachers, Parents, and the Teaching Profession: The Miracle of Bureaucratized Love

Abstract

There are three million teachers in the United States, 70–100 million parents, and more are grandparents, all interested in children in different ways. To begin with, each of the parents focuses their hopes and dreams on one or two, but not many more, of the 50 million children attending the K–12 schools. Each one of the teachers are focused on 20, 30, or in the case of high school students, groups of 150–160 students. Parents also have the advantage of getting to keep their own child for a number of years, whereas the focus shifts every year as teachers are asked to cope with a new group of children.