Why has the status of teachers changed so much in society?

Not so many years ago, teaching as a career was much more comparable to becoming a lawyer or even a doctor.

Nowadays, doctors and lawyers still get mentioned in the same sentence, but teachers are now linked with police officers or nurses.

These are very worthwhile jobs, but teaching still requires a good degree before you can start training (very simiar to becoming a lawyer) while nursing requires only five good GCSEs in order to undertake a nursing diploma.

By my very existence as a teacher then, I am actually educating my students to believe that education does not always pay, therefore undermining my own profession!

In fact, many students now tell me that teaching is a 'crap' job which pays peanuts - surely making me a monkey!

Where are they getting this opinion from?

Part of me thinks it's all about the relative pay of teachers and doctors/lawyers, but public perceptions and media influence surely have a role to play here too.

Any ideas?

I just looked at an open question about homophobia in schools, and read the following:
"Schools have enough of a problem with the closed minds of all those teachers"

Since when did 'teachers' become a pejorative?

Doctor = clever
Lawyer = clever
Police Officer = authoritative
Nurse = caring
Teacher = ?

Anyone care to complete the sequence?

Teacher = social worker, counsellor, educator, mentor, friend, helper, one constant thing in many lives, hard worker, undervalued, overworked....... saints

Hear hear! Report It

Lawyers and doctors and surgeons tend to have have fewer patients/clients/come into contact with fewer members of the public than nurses, police officers and teachers.

Perhaps this new perception of teachers is because of something so simple as the numbers of kids they are exposed to?

Or, it could be the way they are treated. If you abused your doctor or lawyer, or even surgeon, they would remove you from their register pronto.

However, nurses, schoolteachers and police officers have to endure abuse on a daily basis. Perhaps this is another reason why people (subconsciously) put them in the same group.

You're absolutely right. The other day my brother-in-law said of his young son and daughter, I wouldn't want either of them to become teachers or professors, such hard work for such little reward. He is right. I feel the change came about when the government started meddling about with the educational system. New systems were created that did not adequately prepare teachers for the change, this resulted in teachers looking 'incapable'. The governments of each developed country does this all the time, introducing new system/curriculum but not training the teachers.
Take Japan for example. English has now been introduced as a 'second language' but teachers are not trained in teaching English.....parents begin to complain and slowly but surely the prestige of teachers go down through no fault of their own.....I could go on

I, too have felt the same way. I have been teaching for 10 years and we still qualify for county assistance. The thing is, though, that teaching is a public service, like being a police officer. That's where people get that from. To be a Doctor or Lawyer takes years more schooling, let's not pretend that Teaching requires as much as 8-12 years. That being said, there are MANY similar education jobs that outpay teaching. The saddest thing about it all, is that most teachers can make more with their current degree somewhere other than teaching. THAT is the problem. To keep the profession strong, governments should at least make sure that teaching positions are competitive with anything else one can do with said degree. I often feel like the smart ones go out and earn a living while we dedicated ones stay in the profession in order carry a moral flag. That either makes us stupid, or makes us good people.

As far as public perception, it is one profession everyone is familiar with. Everyone has been to school, so everyone know how to teach. Obviously that's fairly naive, but it's the public perception.

I had a parent this year tell me that because Mr. Whatsit from 1983 had told her she was stupid, it was our fault (me included), that she has a poor job). We get little praise or reward when we do well, and sometimes a lifetime of crap if one of us does bad.

I believe it is a decline in social and moral acceptability of students' actions that has undermined the status of our teachers. With much of the violence and "behavioral" problems that schools are seeing, low testing scores, uninterest portrayed by students, it seems everyone needs to find a solution to that problem, and the person most in contact with the students is - the teacher. I, however, do not believe that it is the teacher's fault, on a whole. I belive it is the lack of follow through in the home that is causing this rift in society and our stature of teachers. It seems that a general household requires two incomes to compensate the cost of living, allowing less time for parents to control and interact with their children. This allows children to watch shows and do activities that we were not allowed to do when our parents were at home to supervise our activites. Many upstanding citizens have to work during the hours when we could make a difference in our schools. Our PTA consists primarily of indigent people who have the time and ability to attend these types of functions, since many do not have jobs or a responsibility that disallows them to attend. It is easier to blame the teachers for our childrens' shortcomings. "It is the teacher's fault that my child receives bad grades." I truly believe that teachers are a very important part of our community, and support our local teachers very much. I think we need to remind ourselves just who all of our teachers hold in their hands, our children. I also believe that many teachers need to step it up one notch, and CARE about the kids, and not perceive their station as "just a job". I know this can be difficult, especially in the junior and high school levels, where a teacher's interaction with individual students is extremely limited, but I think more caring for all the students to succeed is needed in many teachers' minds. Dear teacher, you still have a high status in my mind.

When teachers started making less money than other professions, more of the people going into teaching were those who didn't think enough of themselves to compete in those jobs.

NOT EVERYONE! There are plenty of really good teachers who do it because they are just good at it. My husband is a phenomenal teacher, but he makes too much money running his business to make teaching worthwhile. He's worked as an adjunct professor making $12/hr, and everyone said he was the best teacher they ever had at the college, but it needed so much unpaid work between the hours in class that it wasn't worth it for him (especially since he makes $100+/hr running his business). Still, it's society's loss that someone like him can't go into teaching as a career.

The teacher's union doesn't help matters. New teachers get paid next to nothing while tenured teachers get gobs of money and benefits right at the point when most of them are burnt out and cynical.

Add to that the liberal indoctrination agenda that educators want to push, and it only adds to the attitude that teaching is a low class job.

teaching can hold different types of reward that has nothing to do with money....the problem is, the public education system has changed sooo much that teachers are faced with "standards"....that leave them with little room for letting their creative side out to really influence the children....also, i might add, it seems as though(when i walk into my son's school) teachers resemble cops more and more.....i feel for teachers...even though i am becoming one my self....can't wait to see what the beurocracy is like....if you want your pupils to see your job differently, place the value on something other than money....money is not the only reward in life

I am convinced it is a concerted attempt to undermine the profession by civil servants in the Deparmtent for Education and began with the National Curriculum. This set the precident that teachers could not be trusted to teach. Of course this is a load of drivel, but would explain why successive governments' education policies(regardless of political colour) are virtually identical. Why they should want to do this I don't know.

My opinions are probably more negative than you're looking for, but as a teacher who loves his job here are a few of my thoughts:

1. Teaching is a good job with decent pay, in my opinion. You're right-- it's not ranked by society as being as important as doctors or lawyers, but that's simply because there are a lot more qualified teachers available. Very few people can endure medical school or law school long enough to graduate-- many people DO endure teacher college long enough to graduate. As a result, there's just a lot of qualified teachers out there.

2. I went to school for 6 years-- 4 years for my bachelor's and two for my masters' degree. I now teach in an elementary school. Want to know my honest opinion? I could have easily learned everything I need to know to become a teacher in TWO years. The government and the college require me to take so many stupid classes-- and they forced me to learn so much crap I'll never need to know (calculus, shakepeare, etc.). They also required me to take lots of classes that just taught common sense (multicultural education, to name one of many). I took sooo many BS classes I don't need to be an effective teacher.

Compare this to medical school-- where you need to learn the content of every class to be a good doctor. They don't have to take "Multicultural patient care". They take courses on anatomy, drugs, human body-- stuff that's important for doctors to know. Unfortunately, teaching colleges aren't like that.

3. As for relative pay when compared to doctors and lawyers, teachers will never be able to do that. Why? Because most education is paid for by the government, the communities in which we live simply can't afford to pay us doctor and lawyer salaries. Their taxes would be unmanageable.

I love my job-- I honestly do. I don't think all of the college I had to go through to get my job was really worth it. I think my salary is fine-- but you're right-- it's not as I high as I deserve. Unfortunately, there seems to be little we can do about it. :(

Society as a whole is going downhill fast. The attitude of some parents is that their children can do no wrong, and that it's the teachers/police/everyone else's fault that the children are failing, while failing to grasp the fact that placing their children in front of the TV or latest videogame is not the correct way to bring up children. Meanwhile we have a benefits system that encourages 'lone parents' and attaches no status to hard-working families. This leaves us in the situation where people like nurses are living on the breadline. The police are powerless to do their job properly without being accused of everything under the sun, and the same goes for teachers.

All of this makes it ok for the parents to abuse the staff at the school / hospital / police station, safe in the knowledge that nothing will be done, or if they do get arrested, will probably be let off with a tiny fine, because they are unemployed - and so the cycle repeats.

The children at achool then see this happening and also see that nothing can be done to them for bad behaviour - because the schools don't want to damage their position in the league tables. Therefore seeing teaching as a 'crap' job.

We need to restore some pride back into the country, and install some discipline and praise where it's due. We need to weed out the teachers who can't handle teaching, and who are always off sick. We need to train good teachers and classroom assistants, and pay them a decent wage. Finally some of the teachers need to show some respect to the classroom assistants who work hard to help them in the classroom, and not treat them like some sort of sub-species.

How do I know this? I am a Learning Support Assistant in a secondary school just out of 'special measures'. And yes I do have GCSEs, A-Levels and a brain - not just a wannabee teacher 'helper'!

To be a teacher these days i should imagine you would need a lot of patience, But i think if people who choose to go into a profession, should choose it because they care about that profession not about the money and they're is alot just in it for the money but they're are also alot that are in it that care. form an under achiever x

It is not just about the media (although when was the last time that you saw a positive news story about teaching) but about the attitude of the parents. If they don't support us - then we have no chance.

As a side note on money. I went into this job because I believed I could make a difference and still believe that I make a valuable contribution. That said, it does rankle me that I could earn far more money working for Tesco's, and there would be less 'out of hours' work as well. If you break down our salary into an hourly rate including all of the hours that we actually do - it is a shocker. Mine is currently below the minimum wage. Of course that is for the UK - congratulations for those who are being paid a fairer wage in other countries. Maybe you are valued more than we are here.

Because people in general have no respect for the teaching profession. People do not teach their children to have respect for teachers, the government doesn't do enough to restore this respect- when i went to school teachers were respected and revered. Society has lost all decent judgement. The emergency services and the medical services get just as little respect- they have a job recruiting too- its not just teachers- its all aspects of all jobs it seems. There is something seriously wrong with society.

Actually, all professions have their critics. I was an accountant before entering teaching and came in for fearful stick from all my mates.

Teachers have been let down by the culture of permanent change in teaching. Anybody wanting promotion has to adopt the latest trend.

Also, we have more women than many professions. But its the liberals within the profession who are our worst enemy. And, teachers generally are not very pleasant people. Of all the professions we are most likely to criticise each other and back bite. Plus, to join most professions you have to study HARD for three years after uni, whereas what I recall about my PGCE was the gays having nudist roller skating competitions in the corridors of John Adams Hall.

This is a very good question. I've been teaching foreign languages for about 15 years now. General situation has changed a lot in my country and of course it has influenced my job as well. It would be too easy and ignorant to say that children are not interested in learning because they are interested if we are interested in teaching. In my opinion, these days, one big part of the problem are parents, too. When I was a kid my parents advised me to choose my future profession according to my wishes and desires. My father used to say that it was very important to choose what I liked. Today children are advised to choose professions according to the pay check. I hear a lot of parents say that teaching is not something they'd like their children to do because there's not enough money in it. They usually say "who has ever had any luck with school and learning". I listen to this almost every day.
Another problem is that teachers have less authority than they used to. Many years ago when a teacher said one had not been doing well at school or not been writing homework regularly, parents would react at once. Teachers' words were respected. Today, parents find excuse for their kids, they are even prepared to lie to teachers, not to mention that some are verbally and physically violent. There are so many remarks that school is too hard and that teachers are actually pushing children more than it is necessary. And we all know that children learned more in the past.
I hope the things will change some day. If I didn't, I wouldn't be doing this job. Nothing can give me more joy than passing knowledge to someone.

I believe it is the teachers themselves who give students and the like, the wrong impression of the teaching profession. And, not to forget the parents who, in their wayward way of thinking, brainwashed their sons and daughters who are not intellectual enough to take up other professions like doctors, nurses, lawyers, etc. into taking up teaching instead. And because of this false notion, the country has produced half-baked teachers who cannot even spell right much more construct legitimate English sentences. And for peanuts, they try to survive in a world full of criticisms for their inability to teach right. As for education? Who needs it anyway? There are high-paying jobs that hire high school graduates who know how to speak straight American English