The Supreme Importance of Teaching

"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge."
Albert Einstein

Those of you who know me, know that I LOVE CLASSROOM TEACHING.  I love the energy, humor, variation, and challenge of teaching.  During this time of year when my colleagues and former students are returning to classrooms, I am thankful to have the opportunity to pause and reflect on my career as a teacher. 

Why would I love teaching?  After all, teachers have traditionally been underpaid, overworked and undervalued in society.  I won't sugar coat it; many times a year I question why I do this work.  I give up family time for grading and I often have to face the question of why I don’t “do more” with my intelligence and scientific understanding.  Yet, each year and I am filled with a sense of gratitude for the work I do, the people I work with and most of all, the students that fill my day with laughter, curiosity and joy. Teachers inspire the minds of the future and give students the knowledge and tools to succeed in school and beyond the classroom. ​

Some personal evidence of the impact of a teacher

I was curious about the numbers of teachers in the United States, which lead me into a web of data and estimates and surveys and graphs.  What I present here is really a "quick and dirty" summary of what I can find with a few minutes of web searching.  This is not dissertation level research, however, it might elucidate some of our country's need for more teachers!  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 961,600 secondary (middle and high) school teachers in the United States.  Of that, from what data I can find with a quick search, there are about 15.1 million secondary school students and about 211,000 science teachers.  A quick division and I estimate there are roughly 72 kids per secondary science teacher in the United States*.  That's a lot of impact made on individual kids by individual science teachers.   And, a lot more kids are taking science classes than in the past.  ​

Percentage of High School Graduates who Completed Math and Science Courses in High School

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cod.asp

​​I guess my point here is that science teachers make a big difference in the lives of individual kids, and that impact really scales up to having large impact in our country.

Knowing how important teachers are to our nation and to individual kids, I am thrilled when one of my former students decides to become a science teacher.  I am proud of whatever role or influence I've had on these science educators who once were students in my class:  Lauren (class of 2009), Hannah (class of 2010),  Daniel (class of 2011) and Kristen (class of  2006).  **  I can now add one more to my list!  Casey is my former student (class of 2013), came with us to tag leatherback sea turtles in Trinidad, studied biology at UW, works at Woodland Park Zoo and is getting her Masters in Teaching at the UW.  And, she is currently student teaching at Skyline to become a biology teacher.  At my invitation, Casey was able to come to Washington, DC this past weekend to attend a pre-service teacher professional development at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  It was great to visit with Casey and to transition our relationship from teacher-student to one of mentor-colleague-friend.  Welcome to the crazy, rewarding, challenging and IMPORTANT work of science teaching.  Our nation needs you.

Casey and I exploring our Nation's Capitol

* 72 students per teacher is a National average.  Obviously, averages are important... but for perspective, last year I taught about 160 kids.  So, there is likely a very large standard deviation around this average. 

​** let me know if you are my former student and now are a science teacher yourself!