Teachers should be dedicated people, dedicated to giving more than they receive. Teaching is an unsung “profession.” “Public officials” are expected to go the extra mile, tutor “students” after school to prepare them to pass standardized tests, and “voluntarily” agree to perform other tasks such as chaperoning a school dance, organizing an assembly school, give a school seminar introduction or plan and moderate a spelling competition for free. Twenty-eight times during my teaching career I have accompanied eighth grade classes in Washington DC, Williamsburg, and Luray Caverns, Virginia, working two eighteen hours a day without receiving any additional pay. These “professional” extras are part of the territory. Teachers are expected to go above and beyond the call of duty. This means moving beyond the “non-professional” responsibilities of lunch duty, morning duty, office detention, and monitoring the hallways and bathrooms between classes. In education, “duty” means exploitation of teachers by administrations and boards of education. The “duties” have little or nothing to do with education and are things that volunteer caregivers or parents could easily do with little on-the-job training. The tasks require little professional skill and are a major factor in keeping today's teachers unprofessional and subordinate to administrative decisions. Faculty members must set a good example for students by demonstrating a spirit of self-sacrifice for the good of the school and the betterment of the community. Administrators always stress to teachers, “Doing more is part of your professional responsibility,” they lecture at faculty meetings. “Now we still need three more teachers to volunteer for the Six-Flags Great Adventure trip. You'll be back Friday night at 8pm. And we need another volunteer for the after-school volleyball program and two more chaperones for the Halloween dance.” Teachers are not professionals. They are school employees who are usually told by administrators to be professional only when it is necessary to do something extra or something unprofessional (a duty). Public school teachers follow administrative orders just like the janitors, school secretaries, canteen workers and assistants. Teachers have little choice in matters when... middle of paper... in terms of professional incomes, but in terms of professional autonomy. They must escape the obsolete manufacturing model of the nineteenth century factory management mentality – (administrators) employees – (teachers) product – (students) that has dominated public school education for the past hundred years since the introduction of the Industrial Revolution. That archaic “factory” business model needs to be dismantled, redesigned and revamped. Teachers need more voice and power in school management to ascend to the distinction of professional people. How can the public help make teachers feel like they are valued professionals? It's easy. Respect what teachers do in the classroom. Don't base your opinion of a teacher on one unfavorable incident and ignore five hundred positive experiences a particular child has had in an instructor's class. Even teachers have bad days. Parents should not treat classroom educators as if they were their employees because property owners pay taxes just like parents do.