What is a teacher? What is their role?
Teaching is one of the oldest professions in the world, with roots in multiple ancient civilizations, including China and Greece. Since its colonization, Massachusetts has been influential in the progression and advancement of teaching. In the 17th & 18th centuries, Puritan ministers lectured their congregants on the importance of education, especially reading the Bible, as a path to salvation. In the 19th century, Horace Mann used his educational reform ideas to spark the Common Schools Movement, which advocated for free, non-religious education and the creation of normal schools in order to train aspiring teachers. Mann’s vision, and his work as Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, spurred the rise of modern school systems.
Across teaching's long history, scholars, politicians, and many others outside the teaching profession have repeatedly battled over the definition of "teacher" and fought to define the roles teachers perform. These definitions have come from various people – students, parents, community members, administrators, and politicians, among others – and have generated numerous demands and expectations of teachers. Do teachers solely teach? What do teachers do in classrooms? Are teachers babysitters? Confidantes? Activists?
These debates raise important questions of agency: Who decides who will teach, what they will teach, and how? What power do teachers have to answer these questions for themselves?
What is a teachers union?
Early teacher associations focused almost exclusively on professionalism and not on teacher organizing. The National Education Association (NEA), founded in 1857, sought to emulate the American Medical Association founded ten years earlier, and was led, in the 19th century, by elite educational administrators, all white men. These administrators believed that unionism would destroy professionalism. However, this trend in thinking began to change in the early 20th century with the growing power and influence of the Chicago Teachers Federation (now the Chicago Teachers Union, founded in 1897) and the American Federation of Teachers, founded in 1916. Teachers, including Chicago leader Margaret Haley, decided that they needed the help of unions to protect their jobs and advocate for reforms, following the lead of the unions they saw sprouting up in surrounding industrial workplaces. From this era through to the present, educators have faced abuse and exploitation, including unfair wages, large student to teacher ratios, little to no sick leave, and the oppression of academic freedoms.
Today, teacher unions are strong collectives of educators. They are dedicated to their profession and take the duties of educating their students seriously. Unionized educators work tirelessly to make sure that their and their students’ rights are upheld and protected. They also work to further the profession of teaching
What is professionalism?
The idea of professionalism, or professional agency, is widely ingrained into the arguments that teachers and teacher unions make when advocating for themselves, their students, and their schools. Teachers and their unions define professionalism as the freedom to make decisions about their job and how they do their job (i.e., how they teach, what they teach, and what they stand for). Further examination of this idea exposes how it intersects with other issues teachers and their unions routinely take up, including racism, sexism, and school-community relations.
In the 1960s, the American Federation of Teachers (of which BTU is a local), adopted the slogan "a union of professionals." It did so in direct response to the idea that to unionize was unprofessional, as it aligned teachers with blue collar industrial workers, not the elite doctors and lawyers the NEA wanted to emulate at the time. The AFT grew rapidly in the 1960s by winning good contracts for teachers in the largest cities in the US, and by the 1970s, the NEA had adopted union organizing and collective bargaining as strategies.
BTU's Story
Since 1945, the Boston Teachers Union has worked tirelessly to improve the quality of jobs for all Boston Public School employees and the quality of education for all students. After Massachusetts passed new laws allowing teachers to bargain collectively, BTU won the right to represent Boston teachers in 1965 and won the union’s first contract in 1966. Throughout its history, BTU teachers have defined and redefined professionalism in many ways.
Today, the union is committed to social justice, a position that many union members have deemed essential to bettering the public education system in Boston. Union members have participated in March For Our Lives and Black Lives Matter protests, have begun to create anti-racist curriculum, and have issued a resolution that calls for the removal of police on school grounds in order to fund much needed social projects. While many Boston teachers have long defined themselves as progressives, it took decades for the BTU to embrace and promote social movement strategies within the teaching profession.
Why have educators joined BTU?
Educators have had many different reasons for joining Boston Teachers Union, and these reasons have changed over time. These motivations have been influenced by larger factors, such as statewide and nationwide politics and social issues. These larger issues have affected job security, school funding, curriculum planning, and the overall experiences of students. In order to address these issues and improve all Boston public schools, many teachers have joined the BTU to fight and push for something better.
Below are video interviews with Jessica J. Tang, current President of Boston Teachers Union, and James A. Phillip, retired BPS teacher and BTU member, that describe their personal motivations for joining BTU.
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