Recently, I wrote about leaving the teaching profession within the next five to seven years. Little did I expect that an email I received three days ago would make me rethink this timeline. It seems I was five to seven years off the mark. I should in fact leave the profession a whole lot sooner!
(For those who missed that post, here’s a quick run-down of what I said there:
Essentially, I had lamented that, after over 20 years as an educator, I’ve begun to lose the pulse of what’s shaping the minds of the new generation of students I see in my classroom. Especially in the last five years.
On the one hand, they are still the same age when they come to me as they have always been.
On the other hand, they have also become a whole lot harder to read and to figure out. Where once I felt confident I knew or could sense how the “climate” is in my classroom, I now no longer hold to that view.
While it is still true, I can sense when something is amiss or isn’t right in the room, the now highly adept poker faces among my students prevent me from fully figuring out what’s actually coursing through their distracted minds.)
Proof My Teaching Days Are Numbered!
This week, irrefutable proof I best bow out graciously from the teaching profession sooner rather than later, came in the form of an email from one of the institutions I have been teaching in these past 11 months.
It was a short, generic (read cookie-cutter) memo that basically told me the institution’s management has decided they will no longer renew my teaching contract for “subsequent semesters”, including the next one that will commence three weeks from now.
I have to admit, when I first read the email, I found myself stupefied by its curt tone. Was it written by a fellow human being or ChatGPT?! (I’m sadly inclined to think it’s the former, given how the latter’s capability to please its readers is now almost legendary!)
Even though a part of me was secretly glad that the memo gave no reason for the decision (cos I might not like what they have to say), for the most part, I wanted to know why.
Coincidentally, the email was sent on the same day they released the results of student feedback on lecturers in the previous semester.
So naturally, I went there to see if I could find the answer.
I believe I did. And it deflated me for the next two days.
Why so?
Floored By Teaching Evaluation Scores
First of all, my overall average evaluation score by the students I taught (I had five classes in the previous semester, amounting to some 11 hours of contact time per week) fell below the average of all teachers in the school.
Secondly, several specific scores covering specific aspects of my teaching also fell below the school average.
Finally, some of the more “direct” comments about my teaching referred to the fact that I was often too loud. That I was passive-aggressive. That I had the habit of repeatedly reminding students about their mistakes (which I do, but only to those who repeatedly make the same mistakes!). And I didn’t offer enough feedback to them on their progress.
Talk about deflation!
After two days of feeling sorry for myself, I have come around to acknowledge that much of this feedback stemmed from the perceived experience of some, not all, students in the five classes who took part in the feedback exercise.
Also, scores and algorithms don’t accurately reflect what actually goes on in the classroom, no matter what number-crunching management folks tell you. And since this particular institution chooses not to have independent evaluators sit in and observe my teaching (unlike other institutions that do), it boils down to the students’ words versus mine (which, by the way, this institution never asked me for).
The Harsh Reality Of Teaching Today
One of the harsh realities of teaching today is that, increasingly, educators are expected to score ever higher benchmarks of performance in semester after semester of surveys. The goal post continues to shift to appease skittish managers who are more concerned that students are satisfied with the education they are getting — as though students aged 19 and below (the age of most of my wards) are the best at judging what’s satisfactory or not — and less about the lived experience of the teachers.
Especially the experience of ones like me who are only hired temps paid per classroom hour. Which means the quickest solution for these managers’ “ledger” to look better is to cut us out when the numbers show us up.
I know I may sound like some sour puss. But all across classrooms, teachers today are increasingly finding the joy in teaching snuffed out of their very souls. The education system has become transactional, almost commercial, in the way it approaches the “business” of education. That means, the customer is “always right” has become the unavoidable mantra. If students don’t like you, they now know without a doubt how they can “get” you ousted. Drop your scores and vilify you to the fullest extent possible in teaching evaluation surveys.
I’m just the latest one to have my head gone under the guillotine that is today’s still-maturing student juries.
But I Was “Warned”. So I’m Glad. In A Way.
Some seven months ago, I already had one brush with a student that led to me being called in for a meeting by a couple of subject leaders to hear my side of the story.
For the record, it’s never happened to me before!
That incident was the first salvo, which thankfully I survived relatively unscathed. The student in question had a track record of taking out her unhappiness with grades she didn’t like on tutors. That time, I wasn’t the only one who received a poor comment. And at least that institution took pains to do independent classroom teaching observations. And they would convene enquiry boards if necessary to get at the truth.
Still, in hindsight, that first salvo was my first warning that things had dramatically shifted in the profile of students. There’s now a greater emphasis on what students say as gospel truth, versus what teachers say.
Is it any wonder the teaching profession finds it hard to hire and keep teaching faculty?
Those Who Teach, Can’t!
A long-standing, and somewhat unkind, adage goes: “Those who can’t, teach.”
I won’t even dignify that with a retort.
But this week, I find myself grappling with a flipped version of this horrid adage in the form of a question: “What if those (like me) who teach, can’t?”
What’s next for us?
Two months ago, I wrote a post about my plans for the next seven years. That I would leave teaching and pivot to something else, something I’ve yet to have a name for but which I will begin now to formulate.
It looks like there’s no more time to waste. I must fast-track my plan to reinvent myself even as I humbly bow out of a profession I once thought was my life’s big, and only, calling and vocation.
As sad as it all sounds, I think I’ll be more than okay. I believe I will find another calling. Another vocation.
According to McKinsey, some 12 million workers will need to change jobs within the next five years. And that’s just in the US and Europe! Around the world, approximately 92 million jobs — representing about 8% of total employment — will be completely obsolete in 2030, the World Economic Forum (WEF) projected in its 2025 Future of Jobs Report. The WEF predicts there will be 170 million new jobs, which represents about 14% of today’s total employment.
If that’s true, then why shouldn’t one of those new jobs be one I help create for myself and potentially others too?
Well, here’s to fast-tracking my post-teaching future!
