Emotional Labor

Do you know this man?



This is Steven Slater, the man who has 28,000 fans on facebook for...quitting his job.

Though his flight exit was a bit theatrical, his plight was far from abnormal. Contrary to popular belief, Steven is not suffering from a breakdown-he's dealing with a part of his industry that many fellow airline employees are familiar with: Emotional Labor.

As teachers, we have equal amounts of academic and emotional labor. We have to physically and mentally instruct through our personalities-but which personalities? We are familiar with our many faces (the "parent" the "co-worker" and yes, the "teacher"). It's tough to always be friendly and attentive when our students are being anything but.

So should we pull the emergency hatch? No way. Be aware of the tasks you're performing-grading papers can be easier than keeping a smile on your face sometimes.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why don't more people care about Pakistan?

The 2010 flooding of Pakistan received minimal coverage and US media attention. Why, especially after the attention devoted to other nations' food, water, and economic crises? The popular media theory, Agenda setting, states that while the media cannot tell us what to think, they can tell us what to think ABOUT. Thus, the more media attention an event garners, the more important it must be. So without media attention, we don't think about Pakistan, or feel the situation there is important. While the time to help flood victims has passed, the crisis does in fact continue in Pakistan. The results of the flooding are still reverberating throughout the region. Poisoned water and political unrest has led the population into further turmoil. Why hasn't the media focused on this? 1. US-Pakistan relations are poor. But more importantly... 2. the US supports Israel. Supporting Pakistan might cause US or World politics to flux. Our political hands are tied, and that keeps our ...
Read more

B is for A vs B causality: Standardized Testing

The "No Child Left Behind" issue has a lot of teachers raving. I too feel that standardized testing leads to trouble, both for teachers and students. A VERY brief list: Teachers: 1. Teaching to the Test restricts creative lesson plans 2. Standardized teacher reviews neglect teachers' connection with students (arguably more influential on student mental health than getting A's) in favor of ability to cram facts into students' heads ( teaching vs educating ). Students: 1. Loss of connection with teacher 2. Those in low income areas seem to be getting the short end of the stick...again. -students in low income schools rarely see change. If teachers truly want to make an argument against Standardized Testing (aka breaking from the status quo of "intelligence" marks) then we're going to need a few good arguments. Most of all, we have to watch our fallacies. Suggesting that the testing structure or disciplinary schools leads underachievers to jail...
Read more

Your Personal Learning network

A teacher's Personal Learning Network, or PLN, is a great way to gain knowledge. With the help of the internet and its many sources, you can stretch and strengthen your teaching knowledge base. Your PLN can benefit from quick, interesting updates. Teachers are tweeting, too ! Having trouble shortening your latest find into 140 characters or less? Try making that URL tiny ! Not only does Twitter save you time, it also broadens your outreach to like-minded professionals . Visit Classroom 2.0 Joining Classroom 2.0 or another Ning network is a great way to meet teachers and engage in teachers' chats.
Read more