Teachers, Show Your Stuff!

As someone who is responsible for building our citizenry and preparing our future work force, a teacher should be proud of what they do and have the ability to show the world the value that they are bringing to the table.  When talking to teachers about why they joined the profession, I often hear responses like “I want to help kids grow”, “I want to give back”, or “I want to solve a social justice problem”.  While I think these are great reasons for joining the profession, (I myself originally joined the teaching force because I wanted to help kids, who did not have certain socioeconomic advantages, to get to a position where they had choices around their future) I rarely hear a teacher say that they started teaching to increase the America gross domestic product or grow the global economy.  Yet, that is exactly what great teachers do.

Teachers are one of the primary levers we have in our economy to drive growth.  While the impact that teachers have may take some time to show in our economic outputs, our ability to prepare workers for highly skilled jobs will be key for America to remain relevant in the new information based economy.  Studies continually show that highly effective teachers have a significant impact on students’ future prospects.    Thus, for a highly effective teacher, the way to maximize impact whether you are motivated by helping individual students to grow or having a major impact on the US economy, is to be in a position where you can extend your reach as much as possible.  It is not just about getting results but it is about how many students you are able to get results with.  An organization called Public Impact has done some interesting work on this topic through something they call Opportunity Culture.  However, in order to identify which teachers are best prepared to take on this responsibility, there needs to be a mechanism to help represent teachers to the education community and the world more broadly to help differentiate the various skills that they bring.  In other words, Teachers need a way to represent themselves as the professionals that they are.

While there should be an easier way to find opportunities to grow your impact when you are looking, there should also be chances to be found.  To do so you need to establish a personal brand and distinguish yourself.  As I’ve said in previous posts, the nature of what it means to be a teacher is changing and there will be many more opportunities for teachers to grow their impact while being more fairly compensated for the value that they bring.  However, these opportunities won’t just go to the best teachers.  They will go to the best teachers that also have the ability to communicate the unique value that they bring to the table.

In my next post, I will discuss some practical strategies for how to do this.  Until then Teachers show your stuff!  You do great work and it deserves to be noticed.