Is Teaching a Profession?

My gut response to this question is to shout from the rooftop, "Yes! Of course it is. How dare anyone even question that fact." But being the reasonable person that I am, I decided to put the question to the gods of Google. Boy, was I surprised by the answers. There is a surprising amount of internet space devoted to this very theme, and unfortunatley, a good deal of it is not kind.  It's surprising since none of the good posters of the interwebs would be able to write such undignified responses if some kind teacher hadn't at one time cared enough to teach them how to read and write. But then again, how good of a job did those teachers do since most of the posters seem to be grammatically inept.

My next stop on the journey to enlightenment on this subject was the reference material for this module. I was happily reading along, ready for the nod of approval from my newly chosen "profession," when my eyes stumbled upon the words "semi-profession." Apparently, according to most sociologists, teaching is only a semi-profession "because its knowledge base is not well-defined and consistently used, and its members have very little control over who enters the field and how they are judged."  And with that, I sighed, a deep gut-wrenching sigh on behalf of semi-professional teachers everywhere.  But then I felt a little better because Webster didn't list sociology as one of his three examples of professions (law, medicine, and theology) in his indisputable dictionary, so I can totally discount all their work too, right?

All this research, and I'm right back to where I started--with my own opinion. My husband is a lawyer (a truly defined professional), and I suffered through the law school years with him and the long hours of his first law practice. I would never devalue his hard work in any way, but nor would he mine. No, I haven't spent three years earning an advance degree to become a teacher, but I guarantee I will enter the classroom just as prepared as he enters the courtroom. I will put my heart into my classes and I will win over the young minds of my students, just as he wins over juries. And when I don't know the answer to something, I will research it until I am an expert with the subject.

In the end, the truth is, it doesn't really matter to me if teaching is considered a profession. As long as I am treating it as a profession and teaching with passion to inspire a lifetime of learning, I am a professional with a profession that is the very cornerstone of our society.  Perhaps when society starts treating teachers as the professionals that they are, we will see a marked change in our educational system.