Common Myths About Teachers and the Teaching Profession That Sustain Teacher Mistreatment

• In Event: Examining the Current State of the Teaching Profession: A Case Study of South Carolina

Abstract

This paper presentation utilizes the tradition of Berliner, Glass, and Associates 50 Myths and Lies That Threaten America’s Public Schools (2014) and explores a series of myths and lies related to the teaching profession that harm the reputation of the profession and contribute to teacher attrition in South Carolina. Specifically, this presentation will outline eight myths about teaching that directly impact the discourse about teachers and their lives. The author relies on a dual methodology to effectively address the eight major myths. They begin with a critical literature review as the foundational base and simultaneously ground their assumptions with an embedded descriptive analysis. The embedded descriptive analysis will align each individual myth to the context of South Carolina. They finally conduct a popular media discourse analysis to track how ingrained the eight myths about the teaching profession are in South Carolina.

These myths include:

● Myths about teachers’ relaxing work schedules that provide summers and many holidays off and only require working partial workdays.
● Myths about teacher compensation including that teachers are adequately compensated (with generous benefits and retirement) and that merit pay increases student performance
● Myths about the professional environment including that teachers are well resourced, teachers work in comfortable environments with little to no challenges, and teacher and student needs are mutually exclusive.
● Myths about the professionalization of teaching including the teacher is an unskilled worker where employment is perpetual and plentiful, teachers are easily replaceable, and teaching is easy.

Many scholars, and policymakers, have confronted the teacher supply crisis through efforts aimed at triaging the shortage, but rarely do stakeholders confront the constant attacks that render the profession undesirable to work in. Potential teachers are threatened with potentially becoming victim of the pervasive barrage of attacks on education and the consistently perpetuated misconceptions of the teaching profession that continue to disrespect, degrade, and devalue teachers. The causes, symptoms, and treatment of teacher career avoidance and attrition are frequently expounded in research, but few studies have considered how specific attacks on teaching, created by rhetorical positions, can influence policy in a manner that creates the symptomatic attrition. Thus this presentation attempts to focus on this particular nuance. For instance, old beliefs about personal time allocation and time off no longer hold true and may never have. In fact, teachers often find themselves working long hours through the summer months and winter holidays on personal development, classroom improvement, and educational enrichment often required, but uncompensated (Krantz-Kent, 2008; Stoddard & Kuhn, 2008).

Ultimately the dominant tendencies in educational reform have moved in the direction to further damage the career, away from democratic educational environments, and have critically undermined the educational environment and one of the key stakeholders, the teachers. States must ask why these myths pervade the profession, and how we can fundamentally address the realities of teaching. This presentation concludes by exploring what critical actions are needed to curb the declining interest in the teaching profession and dissolve the myths and lies that threaten our profession.

Author

• David G. Martinez, University of South Carolina
  Presenting Author