Introduction
Education is one of the essential sectors in America, which should make the teaching profession an incredibly respected and desirable job. Nevertheless, in the U.S., there is a severe teacher shortage due to low rates of teacher retention. A number of various factors contribute to this problem, including the public’s misperception of the role of the teacher and the low level of payment. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a major cause of low teacher retention and a way to alleviate this issue and describe a court case that changed public school teaching in the states. Additionally, the ideas about the role of the teacher in the philosophies of John Dewey and William Bagley will be compared.
Main body
To begin with, understanding and evaluating the reasons for high teacher turnover rates is crucial in order to address the problem. One such cause is low wages (DiSchiano, 2017). It is hard to disagree that when most people choose whether to quit their job or not, their salary plays a significant role in their decision. Since teaching is a challenging profession that may bring many disappointments from children and their parents, educators want to receive enough monetary compensation. Unfortunately, this profession is severely underpaid.
Certainly, the states can address and eliminate this cause. According to DiSchiano (2017), “providing compensation packages competitive with those of neighboring districts as well as other occupations requiring similar levels of education allows for all schools to have a good shot at keeping their best teachers” (para. 6). Therefore, the government should allocate more money to pay teachers.
In the history of the United States, laws and court cases have changed public school teaching numerous times. For example, in Evans-Marshall v. Bd of Ed of Tipp City Exempted Village Sch Dist. (6th Cir. 2010), it was held that teachers’ pedagogical and curricular choices could not be insulated from the oversight of the school board (“Law school case brief,” n.d.). Overall, “the United States Court of Appeals held that the right of free speech did not extend to the in-class curricular speech of teachers in primary and secondary schools made pursuant to their official duties” (“Law school case brief,” n.d., para. 5). This ruling has significantly reduced the decision-making of teachers and limited them in creativity.
In their ideas, John Dewey and William Bagley, who were influential American educators and philosophers, expressed their views regarding the expectations from the teacher and those behaviors they needed to demonstrate. First, according to Dewey, there should be playfulness and seriousness in every classroom (Gutek, 2011). Therefore, the role of any teacher is to harmonize these two concepts and teach the students how to do that (Gutek, 2011). If the educator manages to do that properly, they may be considered a successful teacher.
Further, Bagley perceived the purpose of educators differently. The philosopher believed that the teacher should not think about their own desires and interests but instead focus on passing on the realities of scientific fact and the beliefs and values of the society (Gutek, 2011). This is the role of the teacher, according to Bagley (Gutek, 2011). Turning students into intelligent and literate people is the core mission of educators.
Overall, Dewey emphasized teachers’ creativity and wanted them to arouse curiosity, imagination, and seriousness towards learning. Bagley believed in the necessity of teachers forgetting about their interests. In my opinion, modern people, especially young adults who are about to become new teachers, require creativity and imagination to be a part of their job. They want to remain interested in their profession and desire to be curious with their students. Thus, I believe that Dewey’s ideas can make teaching a desirable job.
Conclusion
To draw a conclusion, one may say that teaching is indeed a wonderful and necessary profession that should prosper. Educators need to be respected and also allowed to create and promote high interest in the world and its processes. Though there is low teacher retention, the government may and has to address this issue so that this profession becomes desirable again.
References
DiSchiano, Z. (2017). 4 key factors impacting teacher retention. HRX. Web.
Gutek, G. (2011). Historical and philosophical foundations of education. Pearson.
Law school case brief. (n.d.). LexisNexis. 2021, Web.