Teaching: Not just a job, but a mission

As I was reading Elle Magazine today I was reading an article about 12 intelligent women of today. Number 2 in the article was a woman by the name of Michelle Rhee. She is a Washington D.C. school chancellor who has been pushing for reform in hiring of teachers. She believes that " a child's success in school, and therefore in life, is wholly entwined with how good her teachers are." She has taken this idea and fired many of the system's bureaucrats (270 teachers and 36 principals to be exact) in order to hire teachers who are there for the right reasons-- the students. She is also trying to push for paying teachers based on merit and getting rid of the tenure system altogether. This may not sound like the best idea for teachers who have been teaching for years and are set in their ways, but her intention is to have quality teachers in the school systems.
There is a reason that Michelle Rhee is included in this article. She is bold, and not afraid to speak her mind and fight for what she believes. I believe that her intentions are good. As a future teacher, my hope is that I would fall into the category of teachers that she would want teaching her students. I care about the students and want the best for them. Rewarding teachers for merit would be a great motivator for teachers who have forgotten why they got into teaching in the first place. Students should always be the priority, and if it takes a woman like Michelle Rhee to remind us of that, then I say go for it.

"The Mentalists". Elle Magazine, p.229. April 2009.