The Ultimate Knowledge Work

The term Knowledge Worker was coined by Peter Drucker, and means a person whose main work "material" is knowledge. Using knowledge and developing knowledge as part of their work. A term that created to describe a budding trend in work-life, now describes more than 50% of employees in developed nations.

This term should emphasize teachers. It should have been created for teachers - for as long as there were teachers (thousands? hundreds of thousands of years?), they were the ones working with knowledge as their main material: Using knowledge, Developing knowledge for and in their students, developing their own knowledge. The term Knowledge Work usually doesn't include students of all ages. But it should. What is being a student if not Knowledge Work? But for this post I will concentrate on the teachers as the ultimate knowledge workers.

If the term Knowledge Work is relevant to the discussion of teaching, it is worth a short discussion of relevant characteristics of knowledge work.
According to Drucker, knowledge workers should be treated as volunteers: It must be clear to them that their work is important; that their work is either being appreciated right now, or it will be appreciated when society understands what it is about; Knowledge workers can't be bribed into doing a good job, but probably wouldn't do a great job if the salary were an insult. They also expect personal satisfaction from work. On the other hand, knowledge workers are often willing to go beyond the job description, which is not very clear anyway with their type of work.

In general, volunteers and knowledge workers have expectations from their organization - beyond the paycheck, and beyond the convenience of the job, and often they are happy to give more. Strangely, teachers are not like other knowledge workers in this respect, at least in the less successful education systems: Most teachers in public schools in these countries are disillusioned, and expect very little from the system. Many of them are there exactly because of the relative convenience of the job. Many of them are worn-out, and it's difficult to maintain a sense of the importance of your work in such a state of mind.

How come? My guess is that the problem starts with the behavior of the education organization, and continues with the behavior of the public: The education establishment in such countries treats teachers as low level officials with a specifically prescribed job - exactly what to teach, when and how. What the organization offers is not satisfaction, but job security - no matter how good or bad the teacher is. The public treats teachers the same way - as low level officials, with no authority. As extras in a play, that can be easily replaced with any other extra. It's difficult to maintain a sense of the importance of your work in such an environment.

Teachers' status is an often lamented issue. We are told that it used to be much better. I am usually suspicious towards nostalgia, so I was very happy to see an account regarding the situation in the beginning of the 20th century, in A.S. Neill's Summerhill School - A new View of Childhood:

"I discovered long ago where a teacher really stands
socially. When I was headmaster of a village school and some function took place the laird came first, then the minister, then the doctor. I was down the table with the head gardener."

So, teacher's status is not a new issue, but these days it is becoming more and more out of place: We do respect knowledge work in general. Almost everybody wants their kids to be as much as possible in the "knowledge business", and if menial work needs to be done - they prefer their neighbours kids to grow up to do that. Teaching is the ultimate knowledge work, and teachers are those who can help our kids become knowledge workers. Moreover, in the world we are now creating for ourselves and our children, more knowledge needs to be accumulated before a person can be said to be a proper graduate; More knowledge will have to be acquired after graduation, so it is imperative that students develop skills and habits necessary for ongoing knowledge acquisition. This makes the teacher's importance even more critical than ever before.

What we need to do is bring our attitude as a public into sync with the reality: The teachers' job is extremely important. Accordingly, we must change the attitude of the education establishment in the same direction - not just as lip-service and a bunch of ads saying how important teaching is, but as a change in the teachers' working environment: Authority with accountability, personal development, support from experts and opportunity to contribute to the system. It may be too much to expect the salary to match the importance of the job, but living wages would be nice.

Naturally, when the status of a given profession is low, many people who could contribute a lot to that profession, go and look for another calling. In contrast with the general civil society, some organizations, such as the military, have an established pattern of selecting the best for teaching: The top graduates of any training course are offered a position as professional trainers. We live in a knowledge-based civilization. We respect those who work with knowledge, and wish our kids to work with knowledge. Discussing enduring importance as opposed to temporary urgency: It would be reasonable and wise, to treat the ultimate knowledge work - teaching - as the single most important profession in modern society.