Selling Yourself in the Classroom 125
8
Selling Yourself
in the Classroom
C 125 c
TEACHERS, AS DO ALL those who speak to others as part of their
jobs, often forget that the prime purpose of the teaching profes-
sion is communication. Teachers can lose sight of this within weeks
of the first semester on the job because they must deal with a lot of
externals that seem to have very little to do with communicating.
The teacher as administrator
If you’re a teacher, no sooner do you report to work than
you’re faced with the realization that a teacher is not just a teacher.
The job description says “teacher,” but you’re also:
- Warden.
- Shrink.
- Surrogate parent.
- Traffic cop.
- Records-keeper (attendance-taker, grade-recorder,
paper-grader, administrative flunky). - Messenger.
- Cafeteria security guard.
- And about a dozen other people.
The overwhelming responsibilities of the nonclassroom, non-
teaching aspects of the work may obscure your focus as a teacher.
What was a job you really looked forward to starts to look like
a nightmare of extraneous responsibilities.