The Real Reason For the Teacher Shortage – There is Never Enough Flair

I have a confession to make. I quit my teaching job two years ago. It was a job that I enjoyed, a job at which I was highly skilled, and a job that gave me purpose, but I still quit. It was the height of the Covid pandemic and I had a baby at home. I was scared of getting myself or my family sick. I was also worried about keeping my students safe, calm, and productive in the midst of such stressful times. If I’m really honest though, Covid is not the only reason why I walked away from teaching. It was definitely a motivating factor for my departure, but the actual reason was that I just didn’t have enough flair.

By flair, of course, I am referring to the 1999 movie Office Space, in which Joanna (Jennifer Anniston) works as a waitress at Chotchkie’s Restaurant and is encouraged to wear buttons or “flair” on her uniform. The restaurant required her to wear 15 pieces of flair but the manager continually encouraged Joanna to wear more, pointing out other workers who wore more than double the minimum.

So how does this relate to teaching? Well the teaching profession has it’s own pieces of flair. These are the unspoken expectations and obligations every teacher takes upon themselves that go beyond their actual job description; the sometimes visible, often invisible, tasks that cause escalating stress and challenges.

Some examples of teacher flair are:

  • Sponsoring clubs or extracurricular activities
  • Lunch duty / Hall duty / Bus duty
  • Study Hall Supervision
  • Buying classroom supplies
  • Chaperoning events
  • Coaching
  • Professional development
  • Teambuilding exercises
  • Detention supervision
  • Attending musicals, plays, art shows, sporting events, etc.
  • Active shooter drills
  • Organizing events
  • Creating play props, flyers, posters, etc.

The list really goes on and on. Depending on the age level, subject, and school, each teacher has a monumental list of flair that is expected of them.

Then there are the pieces of flair that weigh the most, the emotional flair. It’s seeing students sent to school filthy and disheveled, students who don’t sleep at home and are zombies at school, students who have been through trauma and are doing their best just to keep it together, and students who are bullied. And then you also have to deal with those students who are the bullies, students who purposely damage your classroom supplies and tools, students who are cruel and demeaning, students who are violent. You have to try to meet each of these student’s unique needs and, let’s face it, it’s a monumental and somewhat impossible task. It’s hard not to feel like you’re constantly dropping the ball somewhere.

Couple all of this with the fact that teachers are often treated as glorified babysitters. In the midst of a huge teacher shortage, politicians are lowing teacher standards and shoe-horning unqualified people into the profession, assuming that anyone can teach. I guess that’s easier and cheaper than exploring the reasons that qualified educators are leaving in droves. Still, without addressing these issues, we will just keep seeing shortages. Do we really only want a cheap babysitter for our kids? Don’t they deserve educators who understand how to meet a variety of students’ learning needs, and who also have a vast understanding of subject matter? I guess when you are looking for someone to do a job that no one else wants, expertise isn’t high on your list of requirements.

And in a profession in which 75% of those employed are women, teachers are rarely afforded with necessities like paid maternity leave, a comfortable and secure place to pump at work, childcare assistance, or even enough time to go to the bathroom during the work day. My workplace did not offer paid maternity leave so I worked up until the day before I gave birth. Many days I was almost in tears waiting to go to the bathroom, and then I would scramble to make it to the bathroom and back during a five-minute passing period. I managed as well as I could until I fell on my stomach on my last day at work. Luckily, my baby and I were both fine. Still, I can’t help but think the stress of working that last month was not good for my pregnancy. How many other women are put in similar or worse situations?

Then you have the shadow of mass shootings looming over schools, tainting each new year with an unspoken unease. Teachers have to train students to constantly notice their surroundings, to flee or fight in the case of an active shooter. As a teacher, I was trained to tell my students how to distract the assailant by throwing items at him while rushing him to get the gun. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, thinking that we are convincing these kids they might actually have a chance against someone with a semi-automatic rifle. All they have to do is act like they are John McClane in Die Hard and they’ll save the day.

A mannequin with a colorful blouse on and a jean jacket over that with many colorful novelty buttons. The text at the top says, "there is never enough flair".

And here is the kicker: Most teachers are not minimum flair people. We want to meet all these expectations. Teachers feel immense guilt when we haven’t taken on enough or gone the extra mile. We love our students and feel like it’s our job to make sure that they are succeeding. Though I’m sure there are the rare few out there, I don’t know a single teacher who is merely just showing up. Most are trying to do it all, and all with a smile. Teachers just continue to find a way to make the impossible work day after day after day. But while that is happening, we take an enormous mental load home. We never stop thinking about our jobs. We go to sleep and wake up thinking about how we can do better. It is one of the most wonderful and yet most taxing parts of teaching.

Even though teachers soldier on in the face of impossible demands, everyone has a breaking point. For me, it was when I was asked to do lunch duty in the height of Covid, in a cafeteria with poor ventilation, with hundreds of students unmasked, and all while I was still pumping at work. I was mainly afraid of contracting Covid and bringing it back to my baby and husband. At the time, it was still a very deadly disease and no vaccines were available. On top of that though, I would lose my prep period in order to perform lunch duty. That meant that I would have a mere 25 minutes to rush the bathroom, eat, and pump. I would have to hold the pump on me while I was scarfing down my lunch. Then I had to be composed and prepared for my next class. It was too much, just too many pieces of flair, if you will.

The bottom line though is this: Most teachers have more than enough energy and talent to give to their job if we would just get out of their way and let them do it. We need to let educators concentrate on what they do best, teaching. Let’s get the focus off of the flair, and back on the fundamentals. Let’s give teachers some dignity by allowing them to have basic restroom breaks and lunch hours. Let’s support pregnant and nursing teachers who may need extra accommodations. I guarantee that teachers will flock back if they feel respected, supported, and empowered to teach. And they’ll probably still supply some of that extra flair because that’s just what teachers do.

Giant papier mache heads – the finished products

My students had so much fun constructing giant papier mache heads. I posted earlier this year about the construction process for this project, but I wanted to follow up with this post on the final painted products.

This was such a great project to teach a variety of concepts such as facial proportion when sculpting, color theory when mixing paint, and trompe l’oeil painting techniques when applying implied texture to things like hair. Plus, the students really loved working on this project and seeing their people come to life.

Giant papier mache heads

Painting Giant Papier Mache Heads

We started the painting process by applying a skin tone to the majority of the head, extending partially into the hair line. We mixed the skin tone using primary colors of yellow, blue, and red. The students made an orange from the yellow and red and then added a small amount of blue to tone down the color. They then added the color gradually to white until it took on the skin value they needed.

We painted white over the eyeballs and then added eye color and detail with Sharpie marker. The hair was painted with mixed acrylic, and students added subtle streaks of lighter and darker colored paint to imply texture.

It was really exciting to see how each student had to use problem-solving skills to represent the unique features of their chosen people. Some students added extra parts such as nose rings and glasses, others had to come up with unique skin tones and face painting (as you can see in the Bowie head below), and others even created dread locks from yarn.

Painting a ziggy stardust papier mache head
A student puts the finishing touches on her David Bowie (Ziggy Stardust) papier mache head.
Student painting a papier mache head.
A second round of skin tone going on after the first was deemed too pinkish. Students mix all of their paint from primaries and white.

If you are a teacher wanting to try this in your art class, make sure you have enough space, tons of cardboard, newspaper, and tape. Also have something for the students to work on during the down times while projects are drying. We worked on artist book prompts simultaneously so students were always creating and never felt like they just had to sit and wait for the next step.

In the end, this project turned out to be so much fun and the students really took ownership of their heads. It was a slightly goofy project but the students really did learn valuable lessons and had a good time in the process. What could be better than that?

Students wearing their finished paper mache giant heads
The finished heads were all wearable, but students needed to cut a small slit in the mouth in order to see.
Finished pappier mache heads.
Students showing off their finished papier mache heads.

A dork about all things art.