People may think of classroom teachers as just line workers, busy bees looking after bunches of kids under the supervision and control of principals and heads in front offices who exist at least in part to run interference between tax- and tuition-paying families and the workers assigned to the classrooms in which a designed and monitored curriculum is being taught. Heads, principals, and of course superintendents are, in the public eye, the public faces of schools. They are seen as the top brass, outranked only by boards (to be invoked only in the most serious of circumstances).
Is this picture accurate, as it applies to who actually deals with the “paying customers” in schools? I think not. The top–down concept is far from accurate and ignores an important teacher role.
Lately I’ve been watching a young friend struggle to make the transition away from classroom teaching—work they found challenging and engaging but not quite materially rewarding enough for a single person in an economy emerging from pandemic disruptions. They’ve completed the requirements for a master’s degree in business administration, complementing a similar degree in teacher leadership, but along the way they’ve been stymied when looking first for a summer internship between years one and two and now for full-time employment.
The candidate has as much as been told directly that classroom teaching experience is anything but catnip to business recruiters and does not add much decoration or interest to a résumé. Hirers in financial services and business strategy and consulting apparently don’t see career-changing teachers as bringing to the “real world” of business either particular skills or mindsets consonant with corporate needs or aims.
I believe that there are obvious value-add skills that classroom teachers could bring to a business environment. Just for the heck of it I asked Google’s Bard artificial intelligence engine, who served up a tasty list: presentation and communication, inspiring and motivating others, team-building and collaboration, conflict resolution, multi-tasking, data analysis and assessment, time management, and a host of others.
For business purposes, I would evoke yet another area. I acknowledge that this could be categorized, especially coming from me, with my experience, as independent school exceptionalism, but I am confident that it fits many or most teachers in every sector: teaching is client-facing.
I’m not talking about students. I will here cite the old joke about independent school marketing as being like selling pet food: the ones paying the money are not the ones directly experiencing the product. Students’ families are generally the ones paying out the long dollar for tuition, while the kids learn in the classrooms and laboratories and play on the fields and stages and in the gyms and rehearsal rooms.
These tuitions, shockingly steep as they may seem, are not just fees for services. They are investments being made by parents and guardians, perhaps among the largest single expenditures families will make until college comes along. (And we must be clear that the same holds true for families who move to or remain in communities with high housing costs and consequently high property taxes so that their students can attend particularly desirable public or public charter schools.)
So, let us consider the specific direction that just about every independent school explicitly gives to families about addressing concerns relating to their children’s school experience. Is it to call the head of school or the division head and download their issues on the “brass”?
No. The message is to reach out directly to the teacher—which puts every classroom teacher in the role of working directly with the paying customers to resolve problems or conflicts.
Not all such situations devolve into “difficult conversations,” but most will require the teacher to demonstrate adult, professional attitudes and professional and empathetic communication skills. It is critical, of course, that teachers be trained in such skills, which certainly require a deep knowledge of individual students and their needs and may involve cross-cultural competence. In specific situations teachers can be advised and coached, but in all cases the aim is to find ways forward that address, in accordance with academic requirements, the student’s circumstances, needs, and aspirations as a learning being.
It may be challenging in rare instances, but working to satisfy the adult family members who are forking out tens of thousands of dollars in tuitions is not pandering. It is about serving students in professionally and humanly responsible ways.
Note, please, that teachers, too, are given the matching advice about student issues: in most cases, reach out directly to the family. Consult with support specialists in the school, of course, but families need to know about and are usually eager to partner with teachers to address problems that manifest in schools.
I cannot speak for public school policies, but I’ll bet that they are about the same.
Regardless of their teachers’ interests in changing careers, smart schools make sure that their teachers are equipped to manage and even initiate purposeful and effective conversations with their students’ adult family members. Teachers at all experience levels need to be able to approach these situations with skill and confidence.
So, to return to business-speak and my young friend’s circumstance, teaching is client-facing, and it is often, as we consider the importance that most parents put on hoped-for outcomes from their children’s school experiences, likely be client-facing in high-stakes environments.
And isn’t that the kind of experience, working one-on-one with key stakeholders amid all the other demands of teaching, pretty great preparation for life even beyond the classroom?