Doctors and Lawyers and Professors, Oh My!

As you may have gathered from my previous blog entry, I am back into the research game. It's a pretty crap game, mind you, but I am stretching the dear ole' mind again. That's always good fun. My topic for my thesis is standardised testing, generally speaking. My current book analyses the definition of intelligence and success on which standardised tests base their "correct" and "less correct" answers. Twice now, and I'm only a couple dozen pages into the book, successful careers are described as "lawyers, doctors, and university professors".

Is that odd to anyone else? I mean, I am pleased to someday be a teacher. I bet I'll even teach at the university level (though I'll never fully abandon the high school sector), but I've never thought of those jobs as prestigious. Granted, they are talking about professors, not standard teachers, but still. You hear heaps of four year olds spouting off that they want to be doctors and lawyers. Police officers or firefighters, perhaps. These careers hold a certain amount of honour. But professors? Really?

Perhaps I have just not realised the prestige involved. Perhaps I have missed the glazed over look of general awe and respect people have when they hear I'll teach one day. But I really do think that I haven't imagined the "Man, I could never do that! High school kids suck." "Who wants to be around teenagers all day? At least toddlers are small enough to force into doing what you want." "Speaking from a teacher's point of view, you're going to hate your job in a matter of a decade." Yeah, I'm pretty sure those are real comments. Apparently, it's all a facade. Really, they're just all jealous.

It's good to be envied.