Risk Taking

What is a risk taker?  A parent we once worked with was concerned that it meant encouraging her child to jump off a bridge or some such thing.  Being a risk taker goes beyond academic success and is an important part of healthy human development.  Risk is inherent in growth.  We all need to take risks and be willing to fail before we can succeed.  We assured that parent that jumping off a bridge is not what we considered a risk taker.  

People often think of risk as something physical.  In early childhood, particularly in the outdoor setting where Dani has done much of her teaching, risk is a big issue.  Gross motor skills develop rapidly in early childhood and being outside offers children many physical challenges that involve risk.  Learning to trust their bodies when balancing on fallen logs, navigating rough terrain, or climbing trees helps their bodies grow stronger as their confidence grows . Risk is a good thing in this context.  Teachers are constantly assessing risk and making sure the risks are appropriate in relation to the learning opportunity.  No one is willing to compromise a child’s safety.  Allowing children the freedom to test their own boundaries and slowly push those boundaries, they will go beyond their comfort zones and achieve new success.

Being a risk taker also means having the courage to try something new, to demonstrate integrity or to work for and embrace change.  It is not hard to find risk takers if we look at what’s happening in the national political and educational landscape. The teachers in Oklahoma and Kentucky, as well as the students demonstrating about gun control, are quite clearly demonstrating how to be risk takers.

The high school students in Florida have taken a huge risk in standing up for their beliefs.  They have defined their issue and passionately defended it to the world.  This took courage and, we might suggest, some courageous mentoring and validation by influential adults along the way.  These students have suffered much criticism, insult, and even threats while continuing to loudly and articulately communicate their wants, wishes and hopes.  These young women and men are a prime example of risk takers who have a message for change based on their personal truth.  They should be commended.

In addition, the teachers who have taken a stand about the condition of their schools where teaching and learning are supposed to occur are another example of risk takers.  How appalling it is to view the conditions of schools where students spend the majority of their day and teachers try to teach, and then to consider the wages these professionals earn to educate children.  Let’s take a national look at the pay scale of teachers and decide if in fact these professionals are underpaid for the work they do.  Or perhaps the better question is are teachers and education valued?  And if so, why don’t the schools and wages reflect that value? One big elephant in the room has to do with gender.

Consider this quote from a New York Times article about why more men don’t go into the teaching profession.  “According to Education Department data, more than three-quarters of all teachers in kindergarten through high school are women….The disparity is most pronounced in elementary and middle schools, where more than 80 percent of teachers are women.”  In this regard, education is a female gendered profession and as such may not be given the societal value of a more male gendered profession.  Also, “jobs dominated by women pay less on average than those with higher proportions of men, and studies have shown that these careers tend to enjoy less prestige as well.”  

Even among professional educators themselves, college and high school teachers (where male teachers have greater representation) are viewed with greater value and status, and sometimes higher pay, than elementary teachers who are mostly female.  How many of you, honestly, whether you are an educator or not, consider a high school or middle school teacher a harder worker or better teacher than a kindergarten or first grade teacher?  What about the teacher of our youngest students who is most often a woman?  How would you value her work?  Did you know that a licensed preschool teacher with a Master’s degree in child development or education earns about $18.00 an hour, and whose job (according to one out of touch and misinformed high school principal) consists of wiping noses and cleaning up bathroom accidents?  This is what exists within the profession of education in this country.

It’s been suggested that in order to attract more males to the teaching profession, we need higher pay and more prestige. As a society we recognize and admit that men are paid more and their jobs tend to carry more social value due in part to gender. Do we see the hypocrisy in that?  Why do we have to put more men into the field of education to place more value on those jobs?  Isn’t there inherent value in the education of our children regardless of the gender of the teacher?

So maybe it is time for educators to start speaking up about the truth in their own schools.  Maybe the #MeToo movement gave this traditionally female gendered profession the courage to loudly speak their truth.  Whatever the case, consider these teachers and the students from Florida risk takers for change.  They are all to be applauded.

We invite you to be risk takers with us on this blog.  Comment on this post or another. Add your thoughts and questions. Join the conversation.