The Socialization of Teachers

You become very organized and structured as a result of being a teacher.... You struggle to be efficient. Control becomes a major goal.... Paperwork, hall duty, meetings, discipline problems, keeping track of student attendance-are a constant distraction.... Administrators and parents push you to be more conservative. Students want to be spoon fed. So, you organize yourself for survival. Good teaching, creative teaching requires time and an inner energy that is drawn away by all those extraneous things. When you're not enthusiastic and energetic, your teaching suffers. You become rigid and the classroom becomes a factory (English teacher, 11 years).