Public School Teachers

There are a number of thoughts running through my head, all related to the fact that, according to Wills in our Making Race Visible text, 92% of our teachers are white, monolingual, affluent females. That's still bothering me to a large degree. For Dr. Wang's Theory to Practice, we're reading Pinar's What is Curriculum Theory? book. He quotes Lather, on p.218, who states "teaching has come to be formulated as an extension of the woman's role in the family: to accept male leadership as natural" and to produce workers for the male, essentially. The other night, I was listening to a mayoral candidate talk in response to the question "What do we need to do about the crumbling of our public school system?" The response was horrible. Basically, the candidate stated that the school has to be fixed so that we can attract business to the area, because they want a workforce guaranteed for at least a decade. Pinar's assessment of the rhetoric "the country needs worker bees... not an educated and politically astute citizenry" certainly seems to be true here.

So while I am angered by that, I also keep thinking about what we can do for schools and students. The race/gender issue in schools... is it another chicken and egg dilemma? Can that 92% make a difference in the lives of non-white students so that they are encouraged to become teachers and create the diversity in our teaching staff that we so desperately need? Or will the change have to come from the members of those groups first - more than 8% who are committed to making a difference and want things to change for the next generation who then will begin renewal?