Keep the Cape – Teachers are Not Superheroes
This week, we welcome guest author Dawn Czaja. Dawn is an elementary teacher in Boston. Before you call her a superhero, read what she has to say about the toxicity of that idea.
I first saw the mug about five years ago. “I teach—what’s your superpower?” was inscribed on the front in bright letters. I remember thinking, Oh, that’s cute, and moving on. And then I started noticing it elsewhere and taking it to heart. There are days in my second grade classroom where I feel like I need superpowers to make it through the day. From a child wetting their pants to another whose special lunch from mom went missing to that kid who just can’t figure out that 100 + 10 is not 101, there are times when I feel pretty heroic because we all ended the day in one piece. But recently, the idea of teaching as a “superpower” has started to weigh on me. My big question is: why?
Why is teaching a superpower? At first, I thought the idea was a cute way to celebrate all that teachers do. Because we definitely do it all, all the time, and who doesn’t want to be thought of as super? The reality is that our country doesn’t value teachers the way it should. Maybe thinking of teachers as superheroes can restore some of that value? Teachers are great! Let’s celebrate them! But as I’ve thought about it more and more, the idea of teaching as a superpower feels toxic to me.
Why do I have to have superpowers to do my job? Why can’t my two degrees and endless additional professional development have been enough to prepare me? Why is it that I am expected to do my job all day and then go home and plan for hours before doing it again the next day? Oh, and also during my lunch I have to find a change of clothes for the child who needs new pants and stop at the store to buy the other one a replacement special lunch so her heart’s not broken and oh my god how do I teach this kid what comes after 100 and have him remember it?
Don’t get me wrong. I love being a teacher. I’ve wanted to be a teacher since I was in first grade (shout out to Miss Hoffman who inspired this desire!). I can’t imagine doing anything else. I want to be the best teacher I can possibly be. (Do you know anyone who has spent years training for something and then wants to be horrible at it? I sure don’t.) My students deserve that from me, every single day. But I am also a human being. I get tired. I get cranky. I sometimes like to leave my house in the evenings and forget about all of the things that happened at work. Sometimes I want to lie on my couch and not move for six hours. And this should be okay because people need rest and rejuvenation. This should be okay because we recognize that teachers are not superheroes – teachers are people with human needs.
The problem is that we’ve come to expect the truly super human from educators. We expect them to give up everything for their students. One administrator told me that teachers who don’t take their work home for hours of planning cannot possibly care about their students. The implication then is that I must not care about my students if I choose a nap instead of more work after a taxing day. Similarly, if I opt to spend time with my family over perfecting a 4-page lesson plan, is my concern for students also in question?
Forget going home to your children or your cats or your succulents. You must eat, sleep, breathe teaching. You, teacher, must completely immerse yourself in all things education at all times. Does Captain America ever stop thinking about saving the world? Does Batman take a vacation? Even when he’s Clark Kent, Superman always has his cape on underneath. You, too, must tirelessly carry the burdens of your profession.
Teachers get summers off, after all. They can rest then. We’ve placed such an unfair burden on educators that we expect them to do it all, all the time. We need to return to this reality: teaching is a job. It’s a very important job, to be sure, but it’s still a job.
In his article “The Myth of the Superhero Teacher,” JP Fulger states, “You might mean well when you call me a superhero…” And that’s exactly it. People want to celebrate the fact that teachers do so much, which is great, at first. “Teachers are considered superheroes because they do more than they should, often resulting from expectation,” he writes. We expect teachers to be everything, all the time, and to think about education, all the time. Fulger cites a study which found that teachers average 12 hours of unpaid overtime per week. Some administrators, like the one who suggested I work on a lesson plan all night, might advocate for even more free labor from teachers.
I searched for the “What’s your superpower?” phrase and shockingly all but one of the “I’m a…” phrases was followed by a profession or title that is dominated by women. And there’s the rub. Why do we expect educators to give up everything for their job? Because the majority are women, and that is also what women are expected to do.
We expect teachers to do it all just like we expect women to do it all. Teachers have to play the roles of educator, nurse, social worker, psychologist, and custodian. Surely, they should stop complaining and give up their every minute to a career. I mean, come on, they get summers off—they can be Wonder Woman for 180 days a year.
But teachers aren’t superheroes. We don’t actually have superpowers. Sure, we make a huge difference in children’s lives and those moments of victory are worth more than anything. And, honestly, those moments can make us feel almost super-heroic. But we are also people. We have families, friends, and hamsters. We need rest. We need community. We are human.
We’ve placed an immense burden on educators in this country to be everything, all the time. We’ve taken the responsibility of educating children away from society as a whole and placed it on the backs of mere mortals.
And sometimes, these mortals need a nap.
References
Fulger, JP. “The Myth of the Superhero Teacher.” Huffpost. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jp-fugler/the-myth-of-the-superhero-teacher_b_9554556.html
Dawn Czaja
Dawn Czaja has been an elementary teacher in Boston Public Schools since 2005. She has a Masters Degree in Urban Education from Simmons College and is licensed in both Special Education and English as a Second Language. She directs the All-School Musical, and this year is teaching 40 children aged 4-12 how to tap dance. Dawn does not take her summers off, and instead works at the Franklin Park Zoo where she directs the Boston Summer Learning Program (but mostly feeds the giraffes). In her spare time, she enjoys reading, writing, traveling, napping, and hanging out with her friends, family, and cats.