Teacher Talk: Teachers are people too

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Teachers are people too

From the "do teachers have free speech?" and "does teacher appearance matter?" files : do teachers have private lives? Well, once again, it depends.

Intuitively, it would seem logical that what one does on the clock and off the clock should be different, and that while at work, you do what the boss says and while not at work you don`t.

If only it were so simple.

Teachers are never not teachers. I remember when I was a new-ish teacher, a colleague who had already done his forty (perhaps even his fifty) told me he had taught so many students that he could not go anywhere in the country without someone calling out, "Hi Mr Rogers". That was indeed his name! In fact, he was once somewhere deep in a South American jungle when this happened. He could never not be, "my teacher Mr Rogers" or "my friend`s teacher Mr Rogers" or "my mother`s teacher Mr Rogers".

And that is the problem for teachers. You might think that you are Jo Blow and you have your own life, and interests and freedom and privacy. But to everyone else, you are Jo Blow the teacher at XYZ School and so you always represent teachers, teaching and your school.

The safest place you can be as a teacher is at a school which shares your values. If you are an atheist, do not work at a church-sponsored school. If you are politically to the left, you will find working in a school which is (or at least its community is) to the right. If not, sooner or later something you do off the clock will cause you stress on.

I once had a parent complain to me that she had seen one of the preschool teachers drinking in a bar. My immediate thought was, well if it is ok for you to be in a bar why can't she? What I said was, this school is not anti-wine. We actually serve wine at parent events. We are anti-abuse, anti-addiction, anti-breaking the law and anti-drinking on the job, but we are not anti-wine. I did not use the "private life" line because I know it does not apply to teachers.

Of course the flip side to this is where a teacher does something which is inconsistent with the school`s values. For example, the school has a strong position on something and a teacher is an active member of a group advocating against it. This will at some point lead to a problem, perhaps where s/he does or says something at school which conflicts with the school`s values or where a community member who supports the school because of these values makes a complaint against that teacher for what sh/he did last weekend,

In this case, a serious conversation with the teacher is needed. If s/he claims the conflict in values does not matter, you are dealing with a hypocrite and things will get worse. Think leopards and spots. If s/he claims private life and freedom of speech, s/he does not understand (or want to understand) how the world sees teachers. Again things will get worse. The only solution to such a situation is a disassociation.

Fortunately, I never experienced this which I put down to having (a) a clearly and publically articulated Mission statement and statement of values and (b) recruitment processes which made non-mission-appopriate hiring unlikely.

So to answer the questions above, no. When you become a teacher you give up a great deal of your free speech, free dress, free views and free opinions. That is the deal with devil we all make. Should it be so? Well, that is a whole other conversation.

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