Teaching is not a white-collar field.
Teaching has all the shine and sparkle of a white-collar field because it requires a college degree. However, if you pop the hood and take a look at the engine, you’ll see all the parts and mechanics of a blue-collar field. This raises the question of what makes a field “blue-collar”? What makes a field “white-collar”?
Consider the following. In this field, practitioners must pass an exam and become certified to do their work. They must renew this certification every few years, continuously, at their own expense. The field is heavily regulated and routinely faces new mandates, protocols, and oversight. After all, regulation is necessary in any industry that handles volatile and potentially hazardous materials — for instance, HVAC technicians handle chemicals that could be harmful to the environment.
Therefore, given the risk involved in a lack of oversight, this field surely requires deep scrutiny.
No one wants unregulated practitioners producing defective or dangerous goods, right?
The stakes are high.
Quality control is essential.
After all, we’re dealing with the most dangerous material known to humankind — humans.
Many fields deal in ‘human care,’ but few are so involved as the field of teaching. Teachers, after all, are only responsible for a minimum of approximately 60% of the human child’s care and education. That is, of course, assuming that the human child returns to their enclosure of origin upon the end of the ‘normal’ educational period. However, we are seeing sharp increases in the amount of time the human child is not located within their enclosure of origin. After-school programs, before-school programs, extracurriculars, and daycare– all increase the amount of time the Teacher is responsible for the care and keeping of the human child.