Dear Editor,

At the risk of making the understatement of the century, I wish to make this observation: the teaching profession is in very serious trouble. The government won’t pay teachers what they have already earned; the public seem to be against the teachers, and even the two major newspapers, The Gleaner and the Observer, seem to be against the teachers.

I was truly amazed at the article, “A teacher’s rage”, published in The Sunday Gleaner on May 9 about an alleged incident as recounted by a 14-year-old, and which made it to the front page. It’s hard to believe that The Gleaner, a newspaper that’s been in business for over 100 years, and is seen as credible to most Jamaicans, would publish an unsubstantiated story. Perhaps this “alleged” incident, as reported by a 14-year-old, was intentionally placed on the front page in bold red to undermine the credibility of the teaching profession.

But it is not the intention of this letter to chastise The Gleaner or the Observer, for that matter, whose scathing article earlier insulted teachers by leading the public to believe that a measly ceramic mug stuffed with candy (a further slap in the face to diabetic educators) would entice teachers back to work. No. I write because I have a few observations to make and recommendations to those in the teaching profession.

As we’ve suspected all along, teaching is a thankless job, but messages conveyed to teachers by the media, politicians, and the public expressed over the airwaves and printed in the papers are profound. I’ll outline them below:

(1) Teaching is not a profession but a calling, and as such you are expected to do this out of the goodness of your heart. Economics should not figure into the equation.

(2) Students have absolutely no responsibility for their education, and parents have no role to play in their children’s education. So, the burden of this responsibility rests solely on teachers’ shoulders.

(3) Society really needs you to stay on the job because those who do not teach would rather be unemployed than do what you do on a daily basis.

4) Although society needs you, you are only deserving of disrespect and low wages for the poor working conditions, insolence from parents and students, and threats to your physical well-being.

So here are some recommendations to all the teachers who may be feeling badly: If you love the profession, take your services overseas because you are not appreciated here. If you are fed up with the system as it now stands, use your resourcefulness and education and find another line of work where you’ll be able to recover a bit of your dignity. If you are stuck in this quagmire, you will simply have to adapt to having your profession maligned, watching your standard of living erode, and being unable to provide for yourself in your old age.

Travis Roberts

Kingston