Exploring Teacher Entitlement: Perspectives from Personal Experience

This chapter explores the concept of entitlement among school teachers and university professors in terms of long-standing characteristics of the culture of schooling. Features of the school culture are introduced with a short excerpt from a science lesson that illustrates how the authority of a teacher's position can be substituted for the teacher's authority of knowledge or reason. Introduction of the concept of the authority that arises from experience leads to discussion of entitlement arising from viewing teaching as a gift rather than a service. If teaching is a service, are students not entitled to a voice in their learning? To illustrate, a three-decade project to develop students' voice and responsibility in their learning is discussed. Given the unique characteristics of teaching and teacher education, the chapter closes with the suggestion that the ultimate indication of teacher entitlement may be teachers not realizing the importance of teaching their students how to learn.