As if the budget woes weren’t enough for Orion schools, the district is also faced with a superintendent who shows no respect for or comprehension of the profession. David Deets is paraphrased in the Orion Gazette (16 April 2010, p.1) as saying “he was not sure he would recommend young people go into education.” For Deets to display such an atrocious ignorance of the integrity of education is not simply misguided; it is an outrageous affront to Orion teachers, aides, students and concerned parents. Moreover, Deets’ attitude is offensive and insulting to all teachers, professors and educators.
This disdainful attitude appears to be pervasive. Deets whines about administrators being over-burdened with responsibilities and thus the staff cannot be reduced. Yet his budget cuts require the reduction of classroom personnel. Teachers, not administrators, are the most important element of the education profession. Teachers are educators; administrators are bureaucrats. Deets’ demands that the real educators do more with less while administrators do less with more is an example of poor leadership which only reinforces an underlying disrespect for educators and teachers.
Clearly Deets is uninformed about the basic purpose and goal of education. Teaching is not a “job” for which one punches a time clock; it is a career and profession involving responsibilities and concerns even after the teacher “clocks out.” One does not go into education and teaching for the money—to receive a commensurate living wage, yes; to make a fortune, no. Educators in the U.S. have long been the lowest-paid professional class.
Plutarch wrote that “the mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” The purpose of education is to communicate ideas, methods, theories and research findings and to develop these abilities in students as well. It is the duty of education to make the student move beyond the self and view the world in all its complexity—to challenge existing assumptions, to encourage intellectual curiosity, to unlock and foster individual potential. Education is playing with fire, not a taxidermist’s stuffing dead animals. One goes into teaching to change the world.
Deets should be encouraging young people to play around with matches, not smothering creativity with soggy blankets. His disdain is inexcusable. Orion faculty and students deserve better.
Maryan Wherry, PhD
