A few weeks ago, a teacher died. 

I only knew about his life and death because Hollywood made a movie celebrating his success teaching AP Calculus to poor, inner city students.  The movie was called Stand and Deliver, and as teacher movies go it was good.  From a teacher’s perspective, the film got the details correct.  The classrooms are dingy, the students frenetic.  The teacher is tired and looks it. 

In the wake of his passing, there has been some controversy around Jaime Escalante and what he did for his students.   Many argue that though this man did exceptional work with some of the most forsaken students in his community, he did a disservice to teachers.  Mr. Escalante put in long hours far beyond his contract, his pay, what was reasonable for any human being to work.  He invited students into his home.  He introduced himself to their families.  He put himself out at the expense of his own health.  He achieved results with his students, but no teacher should be expected to work as hard as Jaime Escalante.  Not for the pay they are currently making.  Not without being contracted and compensated.      

Teaching is unique among professions in the public imagination because teaching carries the mystique of love.   We expect the teachers of our children to love their jobs and their students in a way we don’t expect any other professional to feel about their daily tasks and client base.  I’ve never heard a lawyer say he went into law for the love of grown-ups. 

We need our teachers to be called, maybe by God, maybe by some other altruistic force, to serve their students with a non-specific, self-less love for children.  We need them to take work home on weekends, pay for supplies out of their own pockets, serve as surrogate parents, counselors and friends.  We expect teachers to do all of this for pretty crappy money compared to other professions, and we expect them to love it.    Many say that this expectation is unfair.

Certainly there are mediocre lawyers, bankers, grocers.  They do a daily job that serves the purpose, and come home to their families with consciences clear, content that they did a job and it was good enough.  Surgeons and airplane pilots don’t have this kind of leeway, but they get compensated for the demands of excellence and the ensuing stress.  They get prestige.  They get loads of money.  Without prestige and money, there is no reason to work as hard as someone like Jaime Escalante.

When I went into Office Depot today to buy classroom supplies with my own money, I passed shelves of business self-help books that extol the virtues of investing wisely and working long hours above and beyond the competition in order to achieve financial and business goals. 

Those books on how to get rich got me to thinking.

Nobody ever told Richard Branson, Bill Gates or “Sully” Sullenberger not to work too hard because they were making other business moguls, computer folks and airplane pilots look bad.  

As a teacher, my currency is education and what’s at stake are my students’ futures.  I’m wisely investing in their hearts and minds and working long hours above and beyond the competition in order to achieve their high test scores, graduation and entrance into four-year colleges.    (There are no books about how to do this.  Maybe I should write one.)

What is my competition in this profession?  The neighborhood drug dealers, generational poverty, depression, and gun violence, just to name a few.   I work through most of my weekends, vacations and evenings.  I call students on the phone, I’ve gone to their homes, I’ve met their families. When my competition was a dangerous neighborhood, I gave students rides home, to work, to school.  When my competition was systemic hunger, I provided energy bars and water.  When my competition was anorexia, I spent every single lunch period for a year counting a student’s almonds and apple slices and making sure she ate every bite of her lunch. 

When my competition was suicidal thoughts, I spent prep periods listening to a student’s loneliness.  When my competition was ignorance, I gave extra tutorials in preparation for tests and term paper assignments.   When my competition was boredom and ennui, I engaged students with their own words and introduced them to the poetry slam movement in their own city. 

Maybe no one will die on a table nor plunge to the earth if I decide just to work the 8 to 4 job for which I’m paid.  If Jaime Escalante decided to forget about AP and just stick to the regular curriculum for his students from the barrio, no one would have noticed.   But our students would have been the poorer for our lack of passion and effort.   We would have handed our students’ souls over to the competition.

In the impasse between teacher unions, reluctant taxpayers and true education reform, something has to give.  When Chancellor of Washington D.C.  Schools Michelle Rhee offered her teachers a chance at a six-figure salary if they were willing to tie their employment to student results, most every teacher in the district refused.   After fifteen years of consistently raising student achievement by doing whatever it takes in my elementary through high school classrooms, I don’t make half of what she was offering.  I would have taken that challenge.  It wouldn’t have made a difference in the way I already work.

If a surgeon lost most of his patients to death, he would not be considered an effective doctor and eventually he would lose his practice, as he should.  We teachers bemoan the fact that we don’t get the respect of other professions in the public minds, yet so often we balk at tying student achievement with teacher pay and job security. 

As we reflect on the passing of a great teacher, let’s not fault Mr. Escalante because he worked extra hard on behalf of his students’ lives instead of a pile of money.   He succeeded with his students because he chose a profession for which he was uniquely suited, despite the fact that it lacked monetary reward.   Maybe as more people with Escalante’s level of commitment and results step up to the job, our country’s sorely needed education reforms will occur.  If we bring up Escalante’s name in the discussion about education reform, we should consider what other extraordinary teachers a six-figure salary would attract, and what we can do to make that happen.

 R.I.P. Jaime Escalante.  You beat out your competition.