Educator interview The role Mrs. plays in education Tamar Spitzer
But the thing that I was most excited
about is once I was married
then I could put a sign outside my
classroom that said “Mrs. Spitzer.”
Wow. And then, even then, I knew that
at the first faculty meeting of the year
the principal would likely announce that
I had become engaged over the summer
and my colleagues would stand
and applaud for me.
They would applaud for me and my new
engagement and I couldn’t wait for this
to be the case.
It would be a little while before I
started to question this status change
from “Ms.” to “Mrs.”
It became clear to me that you would no
sooner in the business world
find someone smoking a cigarette at their
desk or drinking scotch in the boardroom
than you would find them calling
someone “Mrs.” at work.
And it also became clear to me that
outside of education,
women had long since decided that
marital status was not relevant at work.
I found myself walking down the halls
of all the schools that I work in,
and I would see door after door with a
sign outside that say
“Mrs. Smith,” “Mrs. Jones.”
There’s very few work environments
where people address each other with…
with a title in front of their name.
I mean even the most
professional situations,
people call each other
by their first name,
so teaching is unique for that reason.
Men do not go into a situation
where someone is going to
address them by their title
with leading with their marital status.
Their marital status is never acknowledged.
Doctors don’t go into into the room
leading with
“Just so you know somebody’s my wife,
somebody’s my husband.”
They don’t have to do that.
So why as women are we continuing
to lead with that information?
Like it’s maybe some of the information
that you want to know about me
and that’s fine, but I don’t think it’s the
first thing that I want to lead with.
It’s not the thing that is the most important
thing about me, especially at work.
When I started walking down hallways
and seeing “Mrs.,”
I really started to think about teaching.
There is no next level of teaching.
If you want to “move up” so to speak,
and you want to move into administration–
administration is a completely
different job than being a teacher.
I started to think of all of those
things in terms of,
What are we doing to set
ourselves back?
What are we doing that creates
an environment
where we can’t advance our career?
What are we doing to perpetuate any
idea that we are secondary breadwinners
or the extension of someone else who
has “the real job” in the family,
and so all of those things are tied in,
for me,
they’re all tied into this idea that I’m a
“Mrs.,” and I wanted to shed that idea.
I wanted to shed the idea that
at work I’m a “Mrs.”
before I’m all of the other things
that I bring to the profession.
I talk about in the talk a little bit,
but for example,
at the first faculty meeting
of every school year
in almost every school
I’ve ever worked in,
you can expect for the principal
to make her announcements
and the principal’s announcements
are going to be
who got engaged and who had a baby,
and I just think that as professionals,
we have so much more to celebrate,
so much more to acknowledge than just
the idea that we found our perfect person
or that we’re growing our family.
We are those things, and of course,
we’re proud of those things,
but I think that our professional
advancements
should also be acknowledged.
Teachers are some of the most highly
educated professionals that exist.
We are learners by nature, it’s why we
love to help other people learn.
So as teachers continue to develop
themselves,
which most of them do either by attending
a conference or pursuing another degree
or pursuing a doctorate for that matter,
all the different ways the teachers seek
to develop themselves,
I think that there should be a forum for
the celebration of all of those things.
I think that all of those things should
really serve to inspire others
to continue to learn and grow themselves.
If you think about the fact that
marriages, engagements, and babies
are celebrated more than those things…
those things are finite.
My learning and growth, that’s something
that should exist through my entire career
and that’s something that should be
celebrated over and over and over again.
The examination of what really lies
at your core,
what really is something that
is important to you,
what’s really something that you feel like
is worth sharing, ideas worth sharing,
when those things came through
with this group of people,
we shared a bond that was unlike
anything that I’ve experienced before,
or probably ever will again,
and so it’s not just about the idea
that’s worth sharing,
it’s also about the connection
that you create when you share them.