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Never Underestimate the Value of a Teacher
National Teacher Appreciation Week is May 5–9, 2025
I recently came across something I wrote in 1997 that gave me pause. I thought about how much has changed since I spent time in the classroom, and how much (unfortunately) has not.
Since its inception, the teaching profession has changed drastically, as shown in this .
Initially, teachers were men. Classroom teachers were farm workers, innkeepers, and surveyors who taught children “the basics” during their off-season.
The all-important, educated headmaster used his position as a stepping stone into a real career, like becoming a lawyer or landing a career in the church.
In the 1840s, a shift toward women as teachers began.
“God seems to have made woman peculiarly suited to guide and develop the infant mind, and it seems…very poor policy to pay a man 20 or 22 dollars a month, for teaching children the ABCs, when a female could do the work more successfully at one third of the price.” — Littleton School Committee, Littleton, Massachusetts, 1849
Resources were inefficient for teachers in any schoolhouse into the 20th century (I would argue even today), but segregated schools got even less. Black schoolhouses were considered…
