Teachers’ Salaries

Thomas Martin

Thomas Martin teaches in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

Nebraska’s teacher salaries are among the lowest in the nation. There is currently a bill before the legislature to raise teacher salaries and, throughout the last year, there have been varieties of arguments in Nebraska’s newspapers addressing the necessity of doing so. Two comments regarding why teachers should not be given a substantial pay raise come to mind. First, why should teachers be treated differently from any other government employee; and, second, since teachers only work nine months of the year, their salaries are well in line with those of similar professionals who are employed twelve months of the year.

These lines of reasoning constitute the mistake of comparing things which are not alike: teachers’ salaries are unlike those of other workers because a school is not a business any more than a parent is an employer; likewise, teachers, by vocation, are not like other government employees.

Let me explain. In the realm of teachers, there are those who teach by nature and those who teach by vocation. By nature, parents are a child’s first teachers, entrusted to raise a child in the traditions, history, and literature of his ancestors, as well as to be the first to answer a child’s many questions. By vocation, there are those who are called to giving their lives in the instruction and care of others, most notably nurses, doctors, teachers, and clergymen.

The idea of vocation has an ancient lineage. Its Latin root, vocare, means, “to call.” It denotes a summons or bidding to a particular form of giving one’s life in the service of others. In this respect parents, teachers, and nurses are similar and are not like other professions or jobs.

Being a parent is not a profession; there is no course of study to certify one as a parent, which is not to say such courses are not offered. In fact, very little is required of a human being to reproduce and to be a biological parent. To accept the responsibility of being a parent, however, is another matter. The relationship of parents to children is a form of government established long before any form of civil government existed.

Once a child leaves home for school, he will spend more time with teachers than his own parents. In fact, in this age of working mothers, teachers will spend more time raising children than most parents. Furthermore, more and more parents are relinquishing the raising of their children to day-care centers, pre-schools, and schools with a variety of before and after school programs. Or, worse yet, we parents are guilty of plopping our children in front of mindless television shows and of letting them be entertained by video games for hours.

When parents abdicate their responsibility to raise their children in the manners and mysteries of their mindful ancestors, the last hope for a meaningful education is passed on to the teachers of America.

Being a teacher is also not a profession because, although teachers in America are required to take courses to obtain certification, there is no course of study that will make a person a good teacher. The same holds true for the other vocations: there are courses to prepare nurses in the skill of nursing, but there are none that enable nurses for the self-sacrifice necessary in the art of healing.

In fact, no one who thinks being a teacher or parent is just a profession like other professions ought to be teaching or raising children. These are matters of the mind, heart, and soul.

It is not surprising in a nation where too many parents assume a part-time role in raising their children that teachers are also thought of as part-time employees who labor only during the school year. This is like thinking that the only time conscientious parents care for their children is when the children are awake or still living at home.

Ironically, since people in vocations find their reward in their labors, it would be unimaginable to think that parents would ever be paid for their labors. This is as it should be for those who teach by nature. However, while those who are called to teaching the variety of disciplines necessary for the formation of youth do receive their rewards in their vocation, they also need to be compensated for their labor.

This is not to say that everyone who is a teacher excels at his profession. But it is to say that the most influential and important people in a child’s life after his parents are his teachers. No nation or community can survive in anything other than a police state without good parents and good teachers.

To think that teachers are “like other government employees,” denies the importance of the position secondary only to parents in the authority of raising the children of America.

Anyone who thinks teachers work forty hours a week has never known a high school English teacher who teaches 130 students in six classes with at least four preparations a day and approximately 780 papers a semester to grade-this translates into a twelve-hour day.

Furthermore, besides those who grade stacks of papers, there are those teachers involved in directing the band, producing the school play, yearbook, coaching the speech team. For the beginning teachers, summers are spent back at college working on the necessary courses for certification and advancement. For the seasoned teacher, summers are a time to regroup and prepare for next year.

There is no greater blessing for a child than to have conscientious parents. There is no greater need in America than to make sure, at whatever cost, that the best teachers are those raising our children in the traditions, manners and literature that will sustain a free nation. If, as the media persistently tell us, the most important people in our country are those who make the most money, then teachers, however momentary the lip-service we pay them, are not important people. We believe this at our peril.