FROM “BAD” TEACHERS TO TEACHERS AS CHEATERS: THE BURDEN OF THE IMPOSSIBLE
The guilty verdict in the Atlanta cheating scandal seems to be a logical conclusion to the “bad” teacher mythconfronted nearly five years ago by Adam Bessie.
As a 30-plus-years educator, I have daily witnessed a not-so-subtle disdain for teachers, directly as people and broadly as a profession.
One situation that captures that, I think, is the many times among my cycling group years ago when people would discover I was then an English teacher. Each time, the person would say, “I better watch what I say then”—not so jokingly.
The stereotype of the authoritarian and humorless English teacher—gray hair in a bun, red pen at the ready—is likely the image many people conjure when they think about teachers.
Not all, but many.
School for too many children is something to endure, a place that seems impossible to navigate without getting into trouble, and especially for children of color, the first confrontation with discipline and punishment that are inequitable and inevitable.
So I regret to admit that a significant reason the “bad” teacher myth works politically and there seems a great deal of glee about teachers/educators being busted for cheating is our fault—our fault each time we have created or perpetuated authoritarian schooling.
That said, I must then stress here it isn’t that simple.
I have, then, a few questions.
The first, Why are 11 educators being convicted in Atlanta, but Michelle Rhee continues to skip along scot-free?
Another, Why did professional educators commit these crimes?
And finally, What does the popular glee over these convictions reveal about justice in the U.S. as well as lingering racism and sexism?
I have some ideas about how all of these are connected.
Let me start with Rachel Aviv’s headline about the Atlanta scandal, by focusing on the subhead: Wrong Answer: In an era of high-stakes testing, a struggling school made a shocking choice.
My first idea is that there is nothing “shocking” about the cheating scandal, but that it is entirely predictable, if not reasonable.
I recommend Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale which dramatizes the consequences of “reduced circumstances.”
Adults, children, and animals backed into a corner will behave in ways that are unlike their normal behavior.
Offred/June fantasizes about murder with a knitting needle; she had been a “normal” wife and mother before the From “Bad” Teachers to Teachers as Cheaters: The Burden of the Impossible | the becoming radical: