Those Who Can, Teach

Merrit Martin is a regular opinion columnist at the Daily Texan and a sophomore involved with Austin Agape! The article below was published in the Daily Texan on Friday, April 24th and can be accessed here. In her article, Merrit discusses the value of education:

"Some liberal arts majors have known since birth that they want to be doctors, lawyers or college professors. For the rest of us, the job search facing us after four years is the source of some anxiety. When we were filling out our college applications, we might have harbored some romantic notion of following our academic passions during our time in school, indulging in Shakespeare and Plato and Rousseau and then magically emerging as fine upstanding citizens, ready to make a difference and change the world and do great things. Then we got to the career fairs and realized that we would more than likely have to settle awkwardly into the business world or the public sector after all. Or we’d have to teach. That was the perennial option.

And yet, at least for many of my liberal arts peers, the thought of a teaching career came off as an admission of defeat. Should they take their degrees straight back into the classroom, they’d be resigning themselves to the same meaningless existences as their old teachers. They would not change the world. They would not do great things.

I’ve been planning since high school to be an educator, and these attitudes have always irritated me. Granted, teaching isn’t for most people, but everyone should recognize that education is of the utmost importance to people’s lives. Aside from the truisms that attest to education’s importance in creating democracies, innumberable studies have shown that greater educational attainment is linked to higher incomes and better health — and health is one of the top predictors of overall life satisfaction.

Countless studies also have shown that access to quality education in the U.S. is far from universal. In its 2008 report, “The Condition of Education,” the National Center for Education Statistics notes that “gaps in achievement and high school and college graduation rates between white and minority students continue.” Drop-out rates for African-Americans and Latinos continue to be higher than those for whites, too. The report also found that in 2004, only about half of low-income status 12th graders expected to graduate from college, compared with 87 percent of high-income status seniors.

Educational inequality is the greatest civil rights issue this country faces. Slavery and institutionalized discrimination are over. But without true equality of opportunity, that de jure equality is a farce. It is even more dangerous to the social fabric of our country than blatant oppression, in fact, because it conceals the underlying inequalities in a shroud of legality and self-congratulation. Without reform, the American educational system will be only a means to preserve privilege for a few while pretending that it provides opportunity for all.

And without teachers dedicated to their students, no top-down reforms will have any effect.

Truly equal educational opportunity is vital to promote racial and social equality in this country. But all students, rich and poor, deserve good schools, effective teachers and access to a quality education. Teachers certainly aren’t the only things that determine students’ educational outcomes, but they are important. In choosing to teach, you show students that their lives are important to you — that their lives are important, period.

As Nelson Mandela said, education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world. And there are many things you can do to help. If you’re willing to give a couple of hours a week, you can tutor students at Austin-area schools; teach an adult reading class at Literacy Austin, a local non-profit; or mentor a student at KIPP, a charter school dedicated to improving achievement for underserved students. If you are willing to give a whole summer, teach for Breakthrough Collaborative, where high schoolers and undergraduates help middle school students prepare for college. If you are willing to give two years of your life, consider Teach For America, which places talented graduates in classrooms in some of the nation’s most underserved communities. And if you’re willing to spend your entire career in the classroom — well, you’re probably already in UTeach or majoring in education.

Reports suggest that up to a third of the teaching corps could retire within the next four years and that America’s classrooms will need all the new talent they can get. Not everyone is meant to teach, but those who do will have a daily opportunity to do great things (if not make great money). Teaching isn’t an unfortunate back-up plan. It’s a way to promote equality, inspire young people and open doors for those in need."