Last week, in my doctor’s office—after discussing the next phase of my care plan for some ongoing health issues—I joked, “I feel like a science experiment.”
She smiled and said something that stopped me in my tracks:
“Well, you kind of are. Medicine is as much science as it is art. No matter how much research and testing we do, every human body is complex and different. We never really know how a medication or treatment will affect someone until we try it. But, like art, we get better with practice. It’s a science-informed art.”
“So is teaching,” I replied.“I guess it would be,” she said. “Every student is different.”
Every student is different. Each one who walks into our classroom is a complex human being with unique experiences, perspectives, strengths, and challenges.
That conversation stayed with me. And the next day, while walking my dog, it hit me:
In both education and healthcare, the people doing the real work are trained, thoughtful, and deeply committed. But in both fields, those professionals are often silenced by systems that prioritize money and metrics over care and wisdom.
I’ve experienced this in both spaces—personally and as a parent. Decisions aren’t being made by the people doing the work. They’re being made by the people funding and profiting from it.
The Parallel Between Education and Health Care
Doctors get overridden by insurance companies. Patients are denied medications because of cost or bureaucracy—not based on what their physician recommends.
In our family, it took nearly a year to get a specific asthma medication for my daughter because the version her doctor wanted her to take wasn’t covered by insurance. The name-brand version, which would have been available through a script-sourcing channel, was discontinued, rebranded as a generic, and thus became inaccessible through that channel as well. We tried workaround after workaround and various other medications for nearly a year before finally getting what she needed.
In another case, I was prescribed the only medication available to me during a pregnancy complicated by hyperemesis gravidarum. The side effects were so intense and demoralizing that I seriously questioned whether I could go through another pregnancy. There was a better alternative with significantly fewer side effects—but it was $5,000 per pill. It wasn’t covered. It wasn’t an option.
In the United States, over 25% of women with hyperemesis gravidarum report suicidal thoughts, and over 6% take their lives each year, according to the NIH. The suffering is that relentless. And while better care exists, it is often completely inaccessible.
What This Has to Do with Teaching
In education, the dynamics are heartbreakingly similar.
Teachers—the professionals doing the work, implementing research, and studying best practices—are often treated as disposable. They are rarely invited to decision-making tables. Instead, curriculum is dictated by publishing companies. Policies are influenced by testing companies. Technology platforms tell us how students should learn, regardless of how students actually learn—or how detrimental all that screen time is to the developing brain. (Both teachers and pediatricians have been sounding the alarm on that one for well over a decade.)
We’re seeing more and more school districts so beholden to standardized testing and government funding benchmarks that authentic learning is getting sidelined. Teaching to the test isn’t just happening—in some places, it’s mandated.
But educators know better. We know that what helps students grow isn’t endless test prep; it’s practicing the skills those tests are meant to measure, in real and relevant contexts.
And yet, we’re forced to retrofit bad curriculum, limit our creativity, and ignore our professional judgment in order to meet external demands that often contradict what we know is best.
So What Do We Do?
We teach in spite of the system.
Just like doctors who bend red tape to help their patients, teachers adapt, advocate, rewrite, intervene, push back, and resist. We do what we can for the kids in front of us.
But imagine if we didn’t have to fight the system every day just to meet the actual needs of our students and patients.
Imagine what education and healthcare could be if the people doing the work had the power to shape the work.
Teachers are not “just teachers.” Doctors are not replaceable by software. These are professions. These are callings. These are forms of care work and craft that deserve respect, resources, and trust.
We don’t need more tech. We need more trust in human expertise.
We are the science-informed artists. And the longer we practice, the better we get at it—if only the system would let us.
If you’re an educator seeking a way to reclaim your autonomy and build a life and business that reflect your values, check out the T2E Intensive or the Intro to Private Practice Teaching mini-course on YouTube.
Let’s reimagine what’s possible—together.