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Professionalism in Post-Truth America
A Professional is Not Only Skilled, But Also Dedicated to a Greater Good
I grew up in a world without professionals and now I find myself moved to say I would never want to live in such a world. That sentence begs for qualification before I finish writing it, in that my perception of professionals used to be limited.
If you had asked me, I would probably have mentioned medical doctors (the only kind I knew), lawyers, dentists….I’m not sure I would have had enough awareness to plant teachers on the list. It was clear to me from the get-go that all teachers were not equal. The teachers I look back on as professionals now shared two attributes at a minimum: teaching was more than just a job and they appeared to be born with X-ray vision into my soul.
Teachers do not define the outer limits of what I now take to be the professions. Rather, I bring them up to illustrate my social blinders. One thing worth noting about professionals who are not required to have a graduate education is that they may come to their professions as jobs and get sucked in. I can imagine — barely — waking up one morning with the realization that your job has become a great deal more than just a job.
I was not raised with the luxury of being able to utter the phrase “just a job.” In rural Oklahoma, the most reliable way to get a job…
