New Teachers: The Nomads of Education

Entropy, from a thermodynamic point of view, is the inability of a system to convert thermal energy into work (Quick writing tip: always begin with the thermodynamic hook.  People eat that up.).  Entropy represents the inefficiency of a system; the degree of disorder or uncertainty in a system and there is no better word to describe the current state of young teachers. 

New teachers across the country live in an educational no man's land of  the long term occasional position. This oxymoronic position, as it is neither long term, nor occasional, has allowed boards and governments to create a permanent underclass of teachers.What it has done is create the actual definition of entropy; a teaching life of uncertainty, disorder and inefficiency.

So what you might mumble into your coffee mug.  So the young teacher has no certainty, lots of young people face that. So what, they are in disorder, running from one school to the next, you did that too, you say, as you build your personal myth.  So what the system is inefficient, wasting the resources of the young, their energy, their idealism.  You were similarly abused you mutter as you pour yourself more wine.

The cost of these educational nomads is high. Relationships between young teachers and their students are very rarely allowed to develop for more than a term or a semester. There is a high price to pay for these truncated relationships but we have no way calculating that price.  The young teacher is not given the essential opportunity of honing his or her craft, building a course and working with mentors for not just months, but for years. How do we measure the loss of this transfer of experience from one generation to the next?

Not to worry.  The young teacher is learning.  They are learning that loyalty and merit are not as important as seniority and adaptability. They are learning that they are workers not professionals and they are learning that their value only lies in their ability to fill gaps that no one else wants to fill. What is the cost of those lessons?

Most systems do a poor job of capturing all of their inefficiencies.  Education is particularly bad at it because the value of loyalty, the value of interpersonal relationships and the value of honing a teaching craft is difficult to measure.  What is easy to measure is savings that boards gain from not paying new teachers' benefits, from keeping them a temporary work force.  If employers keep new teachers off balance, they create a workforce that is just thankful to have a job and when you do that, you save money for a long, long time.

The sad conclusion from this is, we truly know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.