Changing Roles

Myer's article, "Changing our Minds: Negotiating English and Literacy," offers a multitude of historical information explaining the ever-changing and never-changing roles of a teacher. One of the things that I found really interesting about this article was when it discussed the role of a teacher as a moral role model. I think nowadays it is very much assumed that teachers will have some moral influence of their students, and therefore, they must conduct themselves in a professional and meaningful way in and out of their classrooms. Teachers are expected to teach students to respect, manage time, be held accountable, etc. And while in many respects this just falls into the expectations of a successful student, the difference seems to be the expectations of a teacher. According to Myers, before men, specifically, (but, also women) got jobs outside of the home, many moral lessons were taught to students while they were at home with their parents. But, because men left the home to join the workforce, they were not constantly around anymore to teach their children these moral lessons so the responsibility fell onto teachers.
I feel like this is even more prevalent today. Many parents are working more than one job to sustain a family in this economy. Many students are from single-parent households. And there are so many instances where students are just not getting any moral upbringing from their home life. While in some perspectives, it is fantastic that a teacher can help shape a student in that way, it is also a tremendous responsibility for a teacher to have. And this tremendous responsibility often comes with higher expectations for a teacher's lifestyle in and out of the classroom.