Jherine Wilkerson, an 8th grade English/language arts teacher in Peachtree City, Ga., recently penned an essay for Education Week titled, “I Don’t Have to Love My Students to Be a Good Teacher.”
She said the word “love” in education leads to “an intentional devaluation” of the profession and has “caused people to believe that what we do is something that they can also do, and what we do doesn’t matter.”
When asked about the phrases like, “teaching is not a job, it’s a calling,” Wilkerson said, “I hate it because teaching is not a calling for me.”
“It was a choice. And when you consider something a calling, I think it really diminishes the work that you put into it.”
![Teaching is [a] work [of heart].](https://epe.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/e73e1ab/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1695x1150+16+0/resize/840x570!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fepe-brightspot.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fb5%2F49%2Feacb54ae4b60ac001ba7ceec91c6%2F030322-news-26wilkerson-teaching-life-balance-1299784652.jpg)
