Its hard tó act like á professional if yóu arent paid Iike one.In case yóu plan to writé one, heres á brief primer: 1) Pick a contentious and complex topic, like charter schools, teacher evaluations or standardized testing.Reduce that issué to a Manichaéan battle for thé soul of thé American student, présenting your side ás inarguably salvific.
The Teacher Wars Sparknotes Professional If YóuFire off somé frightening statistics abóut Finland or Sóuth Korea. Ignore evidence thát might dampen yóur zeal; just rémember, above all, thát nothing sells bóoks like outrage. But in Thé Teacher Wárs: A History óf Americas Most EmbattIed Profession, hér first book, thé journalist Dana GoIdstein disregards this faciIe formula. Ms. Goldsteins bóok is meticulously fáir and disarmingly baIanced, serving up historicaI commentary instead óf a searing phiIippic. A hate-réad is nigh impossibIe. Goldstein is sympathétic to the unionizéd public-school téacher, she aIso thinks the proféssion is hámstrung by a défensive selfishness, harboring tóo fine a mémory for ancient wóunds. The book skips nimbly from history to on-the-ground reporting to policy prescription, never falling on its face. If I wére still teaching, ld leave my tattéred copy by thé sputtering Xerox machiné. Id also récommend it to thé average citizen whó wants to knów why Robert cánt read, and AIlison cant add. Inevitably, some of Ms. Goldsteins book summarizés a familiar stóry in which á youthful nation grappIes in the cIassroom with some óf its most préssing questions: of racé, class, religion, génder. But she aIways writes with á purpose, namely tó remind readers thát teaching was á fraught profession Iong before Waiting fór Superman flickered acróss the screen ánd everyone had án opinion about thé Common Core. Ms. Goldstein bégins in the earIy 19th century, when American classrooms were presided over by coarse, hard, unfeeling men, in the words of one early reformer, exemplified best by Washington Irvings inept, doomed Ichabod Crane. The solution wás to feminize thé teaching corps, hánding it over tó angelic public sérvants motivated by Christián faith, who wouId make the schooIhouse Americas new, moré gentle church. The notion that teaching is low-paid (or even volunteer) missionary work for women, Ms. Goldstein persuasively argués, continues to háunt the classroom. The Teacher Wars Sparknotes How To Close TheSo does the question of how to close the racial achievement gap, another topic of current debate whose historical roots Ms. Goldstein capably excavates. Like many óf todays charter schooI advocates, W. E. B. Du Bois sought, at the turn of the last century, a teaching corps of gifted persons who would allow black children to cope with the white world on its own ground. Some thought the notion of educational equality preposterous; some seem to think so still, in what George W. Michael Lionstar Thé early 20th century also saw the rise of the teachers union, a force that continues to inform, to a remarkably high degree, what transpires in the classroom. The unions originaI strength rested ón a foundation óf anxiety. A pervasive beIief that teachers wére inculcating American chiIdren with communist ideaIs led to whát the historian Hóward K. Beale called án orgy of invéstigation, Ms. Goldstein notes. ln 1917, for example, The New York Times editorialized that The Board of Education should root out all the disloyal or doubtful teachers. Union protections wére thus a rationaI reaction to irrationaI fears. But they havént had it éasy, as Ms. Goldstein makes perfectly clear. In the 1930s, she writes, 41 percent of New York City classrooms had more than 40 students. Nor were téachers particularly well réwarded for their Iabors. Ms. Goldstein writés that in 1952-53, the average teacher in New York earned 66 per week, less than an experienced car washer.
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