There is a definite hierarchy when it comes to teachers.
When you look at qualifications, salaries, and overall societal 'status', there is a clear set of levels that segregates early childhood teachers, primary/elementary school teachers, junior high school teachers, senior high school teachers, and university teachers.
I saw this discrepancy quite poignantly in Korea, where I started out teaching quite young learners, then developed more specialisation with teenagers, then became a test preparation expert, and then a university 'professor'.
This apparent 'rise' involved increasingly higher income and more overt displays of respect from the society I was living in. I will never forget how my own neighbours in our apartment building changed their behaviour towards me drastically when it became known I had stopped teaching children in a local academy and was now teaching at one of Korea's most reputable universities. All of a sudden there were bows and honorifics, and (curiously) more respect for my privacy.
And of course, this 'rise' through the teacher ranks also generally involved having to do a lot less work and putting up with considerably less stress.
In fact, if I could be forgiven some indelicate talk here, I couldn't help but get the impression that my perceived elevation through the teaching ranks coincided with a move toward sectors that specialised in talking crap, and leaving behind others that specialised in dealing with it.
That was one context, but this differential regard for teachers is pretty universal across most cultures. The older the learners, the more money and overt respect you earn, and (generally) the less time, work, and emotional capital you need to put in (comparatively).
You see, having worked in pretty much all of the possible age sectors, I can tell you that the teachers who are responsible for young children have to be the most talented, conscientious, patient, tolerant, empathetic and downright hard-working of them all. Their grand reward is longer working hours, less money, and less overall respect from society - and often a rather imperious and patronising attitude from teachers in other sectors.
I can also tell you that almost every person I worked with in young learner settings, who then later went on to teach teens or young adults in university settings, handled it without missing a beat. University teachers who for whatever reason tried to turn their hands to teaching youngsters, on the other hand, often missed almost every beat possible, and then - erm - beat it out of there as quickly as possible!
I don't know...
I personally think that when it comes to recognising and rewarding teachers based on the age sectors they work with, we've got the whole thing back to front.
:-)
