Opinion: Teaching profession crucial to rural communities

Prairie View teachers attend Sunday's graduation in robes and hoods. (Roger Sims / Linn County Journal)

Opinion

By Roger Sims, publisher

Linn County Journal

The gym for Sunday’s graduation at Prairie View High School was already crowded as the school’s band – sans its musicians who were seniors – played as a precede to the main event.

At the appointed time, the band struck up “Celebration March,” and in walked faculty members, each wearing a black robe with a “hood” signifying whether they had earned a bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degree. As they stood in front of their assigned seats it was apparent that most, if not all, of the teachers were there and that the 20 or so seats necessary for them was considerably smaller than the nearly 70 seats for the graduating seniors.

Considering the group of seniors following them into the gym comprised roughly a quarter of the school’s population, it was apparent how much impact that relatively small set of teachers had on that many students.

The robes and hoods, which are basically sashes worn around the neck and down the back, were an indication of the hours of preparation it takes to become a teacher. It was also a reminder of the kind of stressful work that goes into teaching.

I’m guessing that attendance at graduation for those teachers was mandatory, which it should should have been. Many schools don’t require that teachers attend graduation, however, many teachers make it a point to attend commencement whether requested or not.

The message that group of teachers imparted at commencement underscored the point that a high school education is still important. It also demonstrated support for those students who have been a part of their lives for up to four years.

It has been said by those who teach teachers that teaching can require multiple split-second decisions. That’s not during a day or even an hour. Many times those decisions are required inside of a minute. A teacher never knows what kind of personal or home situation walks into the classroom with each student. Nor do they know how those situations will reveal themselves in the classroom.

So teachers get to see students do wonderful things that confirm their belief in humanity, but they also see students who act out or break down because of some situation in their home or after school lives. And many of those situations are heartbreaking.

In 2005 I was accepted into a program that took mid-career professionals with college degrees and put them in the classroom. I was in the second cohort of the Kansas State Department of Education’s Transition to Teaching program. It was a program designed to fill slots in what was even then considered to be a teacher shortage.

With a one-week boot camp class during the summer and enrollment in a couple of education courses beginning that fall, a couple dozen of us were placed in the classroom. Standing behind the lectern. Sitting at the teacher’s desk.

After three years, there were less than a handful of cohort members still teaching.

Fortunately, university programs designed to get more teachers into the classroom are doing a better job of preparing prospects for the demands of the profession.

However, relatively low salaries compared to the private sector, burdensome workloads, increased scrutiny and an increasingly challenging environment leaves the teaching profession as a largely unattractive job choice for those headed to college.

There are currently more than 1,400 job openings for educators on the kansasteachingjobs.com website. It is May, the month where teachers should be under contract for the coming school year, yet there are some jobs that were posted early this year and apparently remain unfilled.

Trade schools like STARS (Southeast Technical Academy for Rural Students) in Pleasanton have increasingly become the darling of education because they fill a need of keeping in school students who eschew reading and writing in favor of working with their hands.

But rural areas need to push students who can adapt to the challenges of higher learning to look at college-educated professions as well. A teacher shortage hurts rural schools disproportionately because often prospective teachers prefer the busyness of suburban or urban living over small-town life.

That applies to other professions as well. Last fall’s tour of Linn County schools by members of the Kansas Supreme Court had one major objective in mind: convince students they should consider the legal profession. There is a significant shortage of lawyers in rural areas, and their hope was to inspire students to look at law practice – as well as supporting legal professions –as a profession.

There needs to be more emphasis on homegrown professionals in our area and on encouraging professionals to move where their work is. While there isn’t much that can be done in the way of entertainment opportunities, finding ways to offer more housing opportunities is a step in the positive direction.