Anna Mendenhall

Anna Paige Mendenhall “A. Paige” Cell:-, Skype: apmendenhall639-1467 Matthews Mill Pond Rd. Angier, NC, US 27501 Bio: A. Paige is the typical millennial vagabond you expect to see camping across deserts, in dense mountain forests, and across icy lakes. “Teach, Research, Travel,” has been the motto in these extreme environs for the past four years, and A. Paige uses these experiences now to transport readers. As a burgeoning American ghost writer with talents ranging from the academic to the narrative, A. Paige loves to show parallels between the real, and the imagined, by explaining and demonstrating the complexities and symbolic pieces of reality. Abstract: The struggles of teachers are not always found in the classroom. Sometimes, a teacher’s struggle is found within the society and associated politics surrounding the education field that prove to be the most embittered battle teachers must face. Dana Goldstein’s, ​The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession, aptly describes what teachers go through by analyzing the roots of the fight. The analysis provides a steady foundation of what to expect and how to move forward with the best practices teachers can utilize and adapt. Confronted with Goldstein’s narrative, the next question to follow, is what is the reality and relevancy of this research and the next step? The Socio-Politics in a Teaching Career I. Overview Dana Goldstein is a ​New York Times ​multi-award winning journalist that has received multiple praises for her novel, ​The Teacher Wars (Goldstein 2016). Thorough in her research and creative in language, Goldstein creates a narrative that amplifies the hostility and lackluster support of the professionals within the education industry. In her introduction, Goldstein asks probably the most obvious, yet persistently relevant question, “Why are American teachers both resented and idealized, when teachers in other nations are much more universally accepted (Goldstein 2014, 2)?” She declares this see-saw perspective is initiated by a public desire of greatest achievements with little investment. Which can be demonstrated in not only in the accomplishments of students, but the social issues teachers are encouraged to be the mediator between and not prepared for. Goldstein offers examples of high intense social changes within the education field and in the classroom based on religions, socioeconomics, genders, and ethnicity. As she historically points out from policy, there has been little consensus developed on the best practice, evaluation, or any manner of requirement teachers are asked of, within the 200 years of US education. Goldstein does offer hope in the form of former education movements led by famous and sometimes powerful former teachers, but does not disquiet the realities of what teachers are facing and where they are coming from. She utilizes this description to create an image that expresses the anxiety over terrible teachers and angry teachers (Goldstein 2014). This anxiety translates to a moral panic, where policy makers and media persecutes a single class of people, and sensationalizes the problems within this class to the effect where the real issue is covered up (Goldstein 2014). Thus, the culture of contemporary sociopolitics propagates censure in the middle of appreciation and reformation. Goldstein highlights these areas of importance teachers face from minority communities, the establishment of unions and teaching ideologies, to contemporary accountability measures and the growing desire for empowerment in education. Her own premise for the empowerment of the professions within the education field subtly weaves between the pages of her journalistic novel, establishing a foundation from the historical validations of the very journey she writes that describes the problems of teaching today. II. Evaluation Teaching in today’s society faces many considerable challenges, especially when trying to chase each new technological advancement that may either help achieve or hinder educational goals. With information widely available that not only influences a student’s perception, but teachers and parents too, it makes it a daunting task for teachers to continuously be battle ready. This battle preparedness comes from articles on the positive and negative effects on the ethics of utilizing social media and technology in the classroom between students and teachers, from the blog and article confessions of what teachers go through each year in the classroom and with administration, to college students finding a teaching career to be a miserable avenue to pursue (Flannery 2010). This miserable avenue entertains revolving doors of policies, standardizations, lackluster administrative or personal will to change, and what inequalities college students have personally observed in the education industry across the United States (Strauss 2015). Maybe this is why popular videos of teachers establishing real relationships with students that could encourage learning are continuously being posted or shared on social media (Judson 2017). Educational development relies on quality instruction and relationships, as exhibited by the articles on teachers establishing such foundations. Relationships are a strong foundation that can be built by effective communication and offering opportunities within the school to children with varying demographics (Anderson 2012). These interpersonal opportunities can be expressed in various formats of communication that encourage peer support and initiatives for a caring, inclusive, and contributing school community where students feel noticed, valued, and heard (Malti, et al 2008). For credible communication, teachers must employ honesty, demonstrate trust with their students, and acknowledge conversations with students, which in turn, students will reciprocate. By encouraging these relationships, teachers’ leadership capabilities and students’ success increase (Anderson 2012). Censure does not rely solely on teacher leadership and student success, but in the funding, quality, and policy demands for teachers. The revolving door of policies that discourage current teachers and many potential teachers in college, with the worst of the policies oftentimes sensationalized within the media, could be alleviated. It would be best to encourage a different approach, one that views the education industry within the United States as a development field. If policy makers and school administrators were to take the opportunity to realize that many programs and urban development projects take time to implement, than the prescribed educational policies would need the time as well to be implemented successfully (Verger, Novelli, and Altinyelken 2012). Rather than taking the time to fully develop and see the long-term effects of a policy, many are assuaged by the early results of implementation and if not immediately gratified, seek to find new policies and more funding to implement a new change of school design. This is wasteful to the industry and could be alleviated with other ideals that addresses the complexity of the educational field. A few suggestions would be to employ collaboration and communication between schools and legislators, revitalize advocates’ explicit or implicit work in policy making, work with policies from the bottom-up rather than utilize the top-down approach, disseminate and re-contextualize material, establish an adaptable form of educational governance, and realize globalization are changing standards as it becomes more rooted in society (Verger, Novelli, and Altinyelken 2012). These suggestions are a few of the adjustments that can help establish a policy as a rule within the education industry that lasts decades rather than see another policy in under five years. If these suggestions were to be taken into account, then it might answer some of the questions Goldstein has for the education industry within the United States too. III. Analysis Goldstein has created a convincing novel of historical analysis utilizing flamboyant language with an accusatory tone, typical of journalist writing, which is meant to grab attention. She sometimes changes her tone with the individuals of the profession she proclaims to fight for and lacks defined quantitative data that could help supplement her reasons for see-sawing as much as she claims American society does. Zervas points out that Goldstein relies, “...heavily based on secondary source material....Moreover, a discussion on teachers during the emerging debates on religion and public education would have helped strengthened Goldstein’s analysis of the teaching profession over the course of history (Zervas 2016, 114).” However, Goldstein’s perspective on the effects of teaching are limited to an education from the northeastern tri-state area and she does define that to her audience. Urban and rural high poverty areas are affected a little differently and treated differently, especially in regards to education. State reforms may provide more choice and charter school opportunities in the vicinity of urban impoverished areas, but remote locations tend to be short of such opportunities due to local funding and family resources (Ingram 2014). However, poverty in general, has been a proven point for lower scores and the United States has significantly higher rates of poverty compared to the developed nations the country is typically in competition with as seen in the chart below. If the United States poverty rates are below the standards for developed nations, and to reiterate an earlier point, maybe officials should see the education industry within the United States as an inquiry for the development field rather than the narrow focus for success. There are other conditions to consider that can be elaborated upon that affect classes in rural and urban areas too, but there are significant difference to what can be expected within the education industry itself considering these numbers. OECD Comparison of Poverty and Education Rates in 2013 Country Child’s Relative Poverty Rate Student Skills Canada 16.5% 522 Finland 6.8% 529 Germany 9.8% 515 Japan NA 540 South Korea 8% 542 9.9% 503 20.5% 492 United Kingdom United States ● ● ● ● Child’s Relative Poverty Rate​: Percentage of children aged 0-17, living in households with equivalent incomes below 50% of national median. Student Skills:​ Average performance of students according to PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) in reading, math and science skills. OECD average score is 497. It should be noted that this is a comparison between developed nations and not developing nations. Data is provided by OECD Goldstein’s abuse on the assessment and exiting of new teachers are amusing, considering the veteran teachers and common teachers she praises were new at one point, and many new teachers are ill-prepared for the very climate she describes the teaching profession is in. Her demand for high quality teaching is not obtuse, but impractical given said sociopolitical climate that Goldstein only acknowledges for her own purpose in this novel. She admits, “Teachers and schools alone cannot solve our crisis of inequality and long-term unemployment…[we must] support ordinary teachers in improving their skills...(Goldstein 2014, 4).” There are too many policy demands on education in varying states, a “political irrationality” across the nation, that is given reason to some of the terms of Goldstein’s perception on the quality of teachers. Goldstein rightly praises the practice of other nations’ education systems in comparison to the United States and her suggestions that it is the quality of teachers that make a comparable difference are insightful, but Goldstein offers little on suggesting how to advocate and implement those ideas in a reasonable fashion. There have been plenty of admissions that to improve the quality of teachers in the education industry, is to consider teachers have advanced content degrees, train teachers in a residency format to practice methodology and to prepare them for the complexities of the classroom, and fund teachers a salary reflective of this extensive training (Bell 2016, and Bendici 2017). To continue teacher quality, schools and districts should promote up to 100 hours of professional development a year, planning time ratio reflective of class time, collaborative mixed-team teaching and sharing best practices, rotating teachers between schools within a region every three to five years to prevent burn-out, interdisciplinary studies and community based projects (Bendici 2017, and Martens and Niemann 2013). Advocacy for these educational reforms are muted, and the economics of funding, market-driven discourse, and the clamoring voices of representation for educational disparities, remain to be an overarching concern for legislators and civil servants comparatively to what teachers can do immediately within their classrooms if provided with the appropriate resources (Waitoller and Thorius 2015, and Yanushevsky 2011). However, some of these ideals could be enforced at the state or district level by proactive community and educational activists, with relative success within the first decade of implementation under current national parameters and state standards (Bell 2016, and Waitoller and Thorius 2015). There are many perspectives to current and modern educational concerns, and psychologically, it is easier to see in black and white than to face the external and internal influences of a complex question (Boden, Berenbaum, and Gross 2016, and Brinton 2012). Nevertheless, there are hard and serious truths in her historical analysis and a unique clarity on the relevancy to today’s concerns. IV. Importance There are credible contributions to society for the foundations of debatable points within ​The Teacher Wars (Kahlenberg 2014). Goldstein paints a clear picture about how these battles have laid the foundation of education within the United States, which has retroactively obscured society to agree on what the purpose of public education should be. Accordingly, there are neither agreements on established approaches, methods, or classroom management styles and heavy tension between academic and popular educational philosophies. These points tackle aspects of teaching within the United States and elaborate further about the lack of a consistent purpose that has affected how the battle for teaching proceeds. Between the quintessential female teacher, segregation of minorities and low socioeconomic demographics, unionized or warrior-like teachers, classroom measurability and teacher accountability, eventually drive the new endeavor to empower and develop quality teachers. To be anecdotal, these are familiar topics, because previous policies formulated interim directions rather than take into consideration cultural propensity for individualism, industrialization, and future societal developments. Understandable, because no legislator or activist are omniscient, but it makes it even more necessary to read ​The Teacher Wars to understand how to create sustainable policies to combat current and future concerns within the education industry. Feminism and Minorities Goldstein’s first accounts are on the subject of the unsuspecting beginnings of female empowerment within the United States on the wings of popular evangelical movements. These movements promoted females as the ideal nurturing teacher for young students, which coincidentally followed upon a slowly strengthening new federal government from a victorious War of Independence and the rise of moral questions in mainstream politics and conversation. This new government needed to buffer a redesigned national educational system with low enrollment of professional teachers, low graduation rates, a burgeoning middle class and a high concentration of single women to men with little to no financial support (Goldstein 2014). The underlying grievances of this new wave of conviction to include women were economical and a trend that follows throughout the rest of teachers’ history when faced with complex, multi-faceted socio-political concerns. As it is later highlighted again after a civil war, in addition to restructuring a new education system amidst a diverse society, economics met the necessity to install self-respect entrenched in racial politics, and promoting either vocational or academic training routes that best served contemporary ideals and budgets. This is a similar story Goldstein shares as the Industrial Age permeates classroom structure and expectations, where economics and enforced classism only seem to deepen the popular concept of Social Darwinism (Tienken 2013). Overcoming socioeconomic backgrounds, racial theory, the perceived undesirable outcomes of the expansion of femininity, and changing personal experiences into political actions, the outline of teacher training remains to be a familiar format that was installed from the past and is an example of the United States outlook on education (Goldstein 2014). Balancing morality and intellectual instruction within the classroom, compartmentalizing teaching as a career of a philanthropic vocation, and uplifting lower economic and racial classes are set to the best intentions, but have heated many conversations about education, and its barriers, within the nation. It is with this particular institution that Goldstein acknowledges, but elaborates little on what the purpose of education should be. Unions and Ideologies Continuing with the strain of female empowerment and especially during the Industrial Revolution, teacher unions became a strong foothold to encourage the plutocracy to face the daily struggles of the masses that have strong preferences that should and must be heard (Goldstein 2014). However, to remain in an economically beneficial position, the plutocracy begins to suggest to incorporate evaluations upon teachers to maintain a status quo, whilst adhering to a unionized mob. Monitoring data and a secular instruction format that uniformly separates private beliefs. This is quickly surmised to be a lack of acknowledgement of urban citizens’ grievances, and the emotions of utter hopelessness with no other outlet finds expression within violence, which changes the perception of teachers immediately. This change of perception, subtly implied by Goldstein, is what triggers the education reform into an industrialized automaton warehouse. One topic of the conversation is reflective of the subtleties of historic convention to the underlying ‘teacher wars’, considering Goldstein’s own perspective. She praises for female attainment of equal pay and opportunities within the education industry, but perceives it as a non-argumentative public service role as much as the plutocrats before perceived teaching as a non-argumentative philanthropic vocation. Goldstein is a little more elaborate in her opinions of a public service role when utilizing John Dewey’s work. She immediately calls attention to the achievement gap and students individuality within this section that is marred by the controversies of historical cultural transformation, which could have been offset by continuous professional development in pedagogy (Goldstein 2014). A conversation that is meritorious, familiar, and based in data collections to ascertain its effectiveness to modern examples, but equally as controversial or economically detrimental as it was within the past two centuries. Ideology confronts classification as much as it begins to classify the surroundings of its environs too, sometimes in constraining endeavors. Accountability Goldstein is great at creating the image that as each link of the chain of historical events connect, it becomes blatant when and how similar discourse can affect the next link. As the narrative continues, teachers were being brought forward to be held accountable for their private beliefs and how it affected their instruction, or the institutionalization of segregation and its effects on the administration of equal public education, thus the poor influences of sociopolitics that are played within the United States, begins to weave and popular reactions require the quick reparations policymakers tried to create (Goldstein 2014). In the mid-20th to early 21st century, it was a literal battle in some moments and a metaphorical battle in other moments that rocked the foundations of American culture, much less its education industry. Standards were quickly implemented to ensure equity amidst a wide range of diverse students, but data were rarely taken into account in the beginnings of most programs (Goldstein 2014). This redirects to the moral or ethical arguments within education, of discipline patterns, pedagogy, teacher representation and the regulation of these concerns. Goldstein immediately illustrates her perception of education as a vaguely complex, transformative power that is carefully constructed by the running contemporary political mythos. Her desire is that educators should be ambitious and humble whilst providing unlimited opportunities under regulatory statutes, which should decrease hostilities between a school and its population and the community (Goldstein 2014). Idealistic, and a positive incentive to greater goals that holds merit, but it should be combined with development goals too (Tienken 2013). An active, vocal environment allows for more transparency that may alleviate or answer concerns, but does little to balance the earlier question of teachers’ independence and responsibility towards students’ growth and instruction. Empowerment It was previously difficult to maintain the balance between a teacher’s independence and the professional development of national standards, and Goldstein’s perception suggests this has not changed. Her disbelief is at the top-down approach that returns to a business industrial model that focuses too much on technicalities and less on the approaches (Goldstein 2014). It is when the discourse within the her narrative changes, that Goldstein admits to a few more failures of accountability measures within educational history, but still adheres to regulated and regimented teacher evaluation processes. These teacher led evaluations suggested by Goldstein are intuitive and focuses must be on research, collectivization, performance validations, and rigorous interactive instruction, and there is a little teacher autonomy in that formula when Goldstein’s primary perspective is to promote teacher empowerment in leading reforms. However, her switch between low standardization scores to teachers’ colleges are confusing, when she belittles the standardized tests and then utilizes the information for a her vague suggestions on preparing teachers for the classroom, especially in regards to differentiation. Things may have changed since Goldstein has written her historical novel, because it does appear that there have been attempts to manage the problems in previous programs by providing more opportunities for teachers’ professional development, and bridges the independence teachers require when creating curriculum between individual or district interpretation of state standards. However, the top-down strict mandates are generally impractical and bottom-up approaches are more indicative to school and community collaboration. Understanding education by consulting, observing and analyzing communities helps to address the local needs, motivations and opinions, then by sharing this discourse between communities will eventually create a state and national dialogue of the purpose of education (Roche 2017). There is merit to this ideal, but questions on her analysis to create communities of practice are approachable topics that are not fully defined. If the novel were to be viewed and promoted as a historical narrative as Goldstein’s subtitle states, rather than an intuitive progressive piece of philosophical literature for educational reform, then there may be less criticism. V. Reflection Faced with the condescension of an individualistic society, ​Teacher Wars ​certainly opens up the discussion about preconceived notions and historical limitations to the very profession that is to determine the future of a nation. “​Teacher Wars is an easy read and recommended for prospective teachers, current teachers and administrators, and anyone interested in a history of the teaching profession in the United States (Zervas 2016, 114).” Each of Goldstein’s narratives on the influential persons of the United States education industry is personal and intuitive to the struggles of the period, which makes the narrative of the history of teaching more passionate. Educational conviction, purpose, perception, evaluation, transparency, and development are the general ingredients that are stated by Goldstein within her novel that attempt to delve into the complex foundations and contexts to bring upon a brilliant and positively sustainable approach for teachers’ best practices. However, these are grand concepts with little data support, which barely touch upon the true underlying concerns that teachers have battled within their classrooms. As depicted within the novel, varying movements gained popularity throughout history and policies were successfully implemented to represent those movements, little was done to continue improving upon the movements, especially in face of other growing concerns. A human error, but one Goldstein unintentionally lays out when taking this journey through history, where policy makers and administrators of the education industry rarely take into account the underlying grievances when creating policy and rarely look into the far future, always remaining firmly in fixing present needs, where the present actors are made responsible and held accountable for the actions of the past. Goldstein does her best to describe a potential philosophy for education, “communities in practice,” where multiple philosophical approaches of traditional and progressive techniques are embraced within the education industry to provide quality standard education for students of varying demographics. However, she fails to advocate for her idea of social change or offer suggestions of practical implementations. To reiterate, if her novel was approached as a historical narrative rather than an analysis on education, there would be more promise for her suggestions and opinions. Especially considering how Goldstein unintentionally alludes to the very concept that drove society’s mixed perception of education within the United States: economics and grievances. Economics has played an influential and institutional role within the sociopolitics of United States education. There are interconnections between societal desires and the funding that government institutions are willing to offer. Most desires, or cultural prohibitions, from previous historical eras are negative in their respects to the present, but are effects in the conclusion that education is an individual and philanthropic measure of a consumer culture, as much as it should be mandated as a basic right (Tienken 2013). A difficult tier to balance within policy and legislation. Therefore, it is obvious how financial commitments and expectations are reflective of educational quality, if financial stability is not offered to the educational instructors and administrators with the necessary advanced degrees and extensive development and practice good quality requires (Majhanovich and Geo-JaJa 2013). These measures have cost the many grievances citizens have brought to the educational industry. Establishing identity, prosperity, and development as educational purposes while mandating industrial regulations amidst the grievances that have been acknowledged, but yet to be firmly dissolved will not be alleviated by a continual rotation of policies that reflect the matrix of economics within the United States’ sociopolitics in education as typical demands of progress entangled in tradition (Majhanovich and Geo-JaJa 2013). Maybe judgment is passed too harshly on the candor with which Goldstein addresses the serious flaws of education, or on the governance of the educational industry, but there must be complete understanding to truly endeavor to do better within a field that is continuously being developed. Entertaining globalization educational methods from a bottom-up approach may help alleviate a few of the misgivings Goldstein has as she pursued in the historical narrative of teaching in order to bring to light the underlying tensions that has created a battlefield in the United States educational industry. Global education methods embrace the convergence of best practices from across the globe that are formatted for national needs within its capacity (Verger, Novelli, and Altinyelken 2012). By actively pursuing this idea, then there could be more room within the United States education industry to grow as best perceived by the community whilst utilizing a wide-range of ideas from around the world rather than a narrow view of educational aptitudes limited by sociopolitics. Ideas that are best represented as methods to diffuse a variable of grievances under teachers’ capabilities as they reference a network of transnational programs in community contextualization that allow financial mobility. From these assumptions, by addressing Goldstein’s narrative as a method of providing a foundation of understanding, much more can be accomplished in proactive educational reform in the United States. Utilizing this formula, varying concepts, and taking into account time to incorporate and observe potentially effective transformations, will provide the desired better quality and opportunities for students of diverse needs, concerns, and desires that could make a nation of global achievements and renown. References Anderson, D. 2012. “Is Building Relationships the Key to Leadership?,” ​Performance Improvement​, 51(2), 15-21. Bell, J. 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