TOMMIE SAYLOR: Despite the drawbacks, it's still a noble profession

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” 

Henry Adams

By Tommie Saylor

Kennedy High School Principal

Have you noticed that many families seem to gravitate toward specific professional fields?  An attorney has children that grow up to become attorneys. A doctor has children that grow up to become doctors. A police officer has children that grow up to become police officers. 

For the most part, this makes sense: Growing up in a household where discussions around the dinner table are centered on a specific profession, where day-to-day struggles and victories are easily observed, where children are encouraged to join a profession when they are of age, enable generations of a family become embroiled in a specific profession. 

Firefighters, nursing, truck driving, HVAC, auto mechanic, business owners, stockbrokers, and so on.

This hypothesis seems to hold true until you come to one profession – a profession that a vast majority of the professionals discourage their children from entering.

“Don’t be like me, don’t become a teacher.” 

This may seem odd, but given all the heartaches, barriers, disrespect, contempt and disdain the public openly displays toward educators, most tell their children, to find another vocation. 

With every new school year, teachers face additional budget cuts while at the same time being told to do more with less. Teachers face horribly written and career-affecting standardized tests that must be given to their students, often not knowing which test the state is going to use or what is on the test to better prepare their students. Teachers face attacks from the media, abuse from the public and subversion from their own government.

Given all of that, there is no wonder why educators work so very hard to turn their own children away from the profession.

But then something happens, like an honors’ convocation. A young lady came up to me and said, “This place changed my life.” A parent with whom I have had more than one disagreement with over the last few years comes up to me and gives me a hug, thanking me for looking out for her child’s future.

With tears in my eyes, I looked out at all those young adults, hands filled with awards – one will be attending the West Point Military Academy, another has a full ride to the University of Michigan-Dearborn – and I know we are making a difference. 

The path we have chosen in life may be difficult, but the fulfillment one can feel is indescribable. For those of us in the field of education, job satisfaction is quite often “off the charts.”

I think I will still encourage my children and grandchildren to take the bitter with the sweet and become a teacher.

How and where will you lead them. Making Kennedy the school of choice. Excellence by design.