article analysis

* What questions did the author(s) have when they started this research? What were they wondering about?
* According to the article, what have other researchers said about this topic?
* What hypothesis or hypotheses or research questions were there and what variables were used?
* What type of research was done?
* What were the basic findings?

Then give your response to the article:

* Did you agree or disagree with any hypotheses that were stated? Did you think the research questions were interesting? Do you think the conclusions were correct?
* Did the research seem to be done well? Did the researcher(s) make any of the errors of human inquiry that Babbie describes? How did the researcher(s) try to avoid such errors?
* Based on this article, in your opinion, what new research needs to be done on this topic?
THE “NUTS AND DOLTS” OF TEACHER IMAGES
IN CHILDREN’S PICTURE STORYBOOKS:
A CONTENT ANALYSIS
SARAH JO SANDEFUR
UC Foundation Assistant Professor of Literacy Fducation
University of Tennessee-Chattanooga
LEEANN MOORE
Assistant Dean, College of Education and Human Services
Texas A & M University-Commerce
Children’s picture storybooks are rife with contradictory representations
of teachers and school. Some of those images are
fairly accurate. Some of those images are quite disparate from
reality. These representations become subsumed into the collective
consciousness of a society and shape expectations and
behaviors of both students and teachers. Teachers cannot effectuate
positive change in their profession unless and until they are
aware of the internal and external influences that define and
shape the educational institution. This ethnographic content
analysis examines 62 titles and 96 images of teachers to probe
the power of stereotypes/cliches. The authors found the following:
The teacher in children’s picture storybooks is
overwhelmingly portrayed as a white, non-Hispanic, woman.
The teacher in picture storybooks who is sensitive, competent,
and able to manage a classroom effectively is a minority. The
negative images outnumbered the positive images. The teacher
in children’s picture storybooks is static, unchanging, and flat.
The teacher is polarized and does not inspire in his or her students
the pursuit of critical inquiry.
A recent children’s book shares the sto- quently covered in paint at art time {Miss
ry of a teacher. Miss Malarkey, home Malarkey Won’t be in Today, Finchler,
with the flu, narrates her concern about 1998).
how her elementary students will behave In this text, which is representative of
with and be treated by the potential sub- many that have been published with teachstitutes
available to the school. Among the ers as central characters, teachers are
substitutes represented are Mrs. Boba, a portrayed as insensitive, misguided, vic-
20-something woman who is too busy timizing, or incompetent. We perceive
painting her toenails to attend to Miss these invalidating images as worthy of
Malarkey’s students. Mr. Doberman is a detailed analysis, based on a hypothesis
drill sergeant of a man who snarls at the that a propensity of images painting teachchildren:
“So ya think it’s time for recess, ers in an unflattering light may have broad-
HUH?” Mr. Lemonjello, drawn as a small, er consequences on cultural perceptions of
bald, nervous man, is taunted by the stu- teachers and schooling. Our ethnographdents
with the class iguana and is subse- ic content analysis herein examines 96
41
42 / Education Vol. 125 No. 1
images of teachers as they are found in
62 picture storybooks from 1965 to present.
It is our perspective that these images
in part shape and define the idea of
“Teacher” in the collective consciousness
of a society.
Those of us in teacher education realize
our students come to us with previously
constructed images of the profession. What
is the origin of those images? When and
how are these images formed and elaborated
upon? It appears that the popular culture
has done much to form or modify those
images. Weber and Mitchell (1995) suggest
that these multiple, often ambiguous,
images are “. . . integral to the form
and substance of our self-identities as
teachers” (p. 32). They suggest t h a t ” . . .
by studying images and probing their influence,
teachers could play a more conscious
and effective role in shaping their own and
society’s perceptions of teachers and
their work” (p. 32). We have supported this
“probing of images” by analyzing children’s
picture storybooks, examining their
meanings and metaphors where they intersect
with teachers and schooling. It is our
intention that by sharing what we have
learned about the medium’s responses to
the profession, we will better serve teachers
in playing that “conscious role” in
defining their work.
We submit that children’s picture storybooks
are not benign. Although the illustrations
of teachers are often cartoon-like
and at first glance fairly innocent, when
taken as a whole t
hey have power not
just in teaching children and their parents
about the culture of schooling, but in shaping
it, as well. This is of concern particularly
when the majority of the images of
teachers are negative, mixed, or neutral
as we have found in our research and
will report herein. Gavriel Salomon, well
known for his research in symbolic representations
and their impact on children’s
learning and thinking, has this to say about
the power of media:
Media’s symbolic forms of representation
are clearly not neutral or
indifferent packages that have no
effect on the represented information.
Being part and parcel of the
information itself, they influence the
meanings one arrives at, the mental
capacities that are called for, and
the ways one comes to view the
world. Perhaps more important,
the culture that creates the media and
develops their symbolic forms of
representation also opens the door
for those forms to act on the minds
of the young in both more and less
desirable ways, [italics added]
(1997, p. 13)
We see Salomon’s work here as foundational
to our own in this way: if those
images children and parents see of
“teacher” are generally negative, then they
will create a “world view” of “teacher”
based upon stereotype. The many negative
images of teachers in children’s picture storybooks
may be the message to readers that
teachers are, at best, kind but uninspiring,
and at worst, roadblocks to be torn
down in order that children may move forward
successfully.
Teacher Images in Children’s Picture Storybooks…/ 43
Why Study Images of Teachers From
Popular Culture?
As we were preparing to teach a graduate
class entitled “Portrayal of Teachers
in Children’s Literature and in Film,” we
began gathering a text set of picture storybooks
that focused on teachers, teaching,
and the school environment. We
quickly became aware of the propensity of
negative images of teachers, from witch to
dragon, drill sergeant to milquetoast,
incompetent fool to insensitive clod. We
realized early in the graduate course that
many teachers had not had the opportunity
to critically examine images of their
own profession in the popular media. They
were unaware of the negative portrayals in
existing texts, particularly in children’s literature.
Teachers may not have considered
that the negative images of the teacher
“may give the public further justification
for a lack of support of education” (Crume,
1989, p. 36).
Children’s literature is rife with contradictory
representations of teachers
and school. Some of those images are fairly
accurate and some of those images are
quite disparate from reality (Farber,
Provenso, & Holm, 1994; Joseph & Burnaford,
1994; Knowles, Cole, & Presswood,
1994; Weber & Mitchell, 1995).
These representations become subsumed
into the collective consciousness of a society
and shape expectations and behaviors
of both students and teachers. They
become a part of the images that children
construct when they are invited to
“draw a teacher” or “play school,” and
indeed the images that teachers draw of
themselves. Consider, for example, the
three-year old boy with no prior schooling
experience, who, in playing school, puts
the dolls in straight rows, selects a domineering
personality for a female teacher,
and assigns homework (Weber & Mitchell,
1995).
This exploration into teacher images is
a critical one at multiple levels of teacher
education. Pre-service teachers need to
analyze via media images their personal
motivations and expectations of the teaching
profession and enter into teaching with
clear understandings of how the broad culture
perceives their work. In-service teachers
need to heighten their awareness of how
children, parents, and community members
perceive them. These perceptions may
be in part media-induced and not based on
the complex reality of a particular teacher.
If information is indeed power, then perhaps
those of us in the profession can
better understand that popular images contribute
to the public’s frequent suspicion
of our efficacy, and this heightened awareness
can support us in addressing the
negative images head on.
Research Perspectives
How do we as teachers, prospective
teachers, and teacher educators come to so
fully subscribe to the images we have both
experienced and imagined? Have those
images formed long before adulthood, perhaps
even before the child enters school?
Weber and Mitchell (1994) contend, “Even
before children begin school, they have
already been exposed to a myriad of
images of teachers, classrooms and schools
which have made strong and lasting
impressions on them” (p. 2). Some of those
44 / Education Vol. 125 No. 1
images and attitudes form from direct experience
with teachers. Barone, Meyerson,
and Mallette (1995) explain, “When adults
respond to the question of which person
had the greatest impact on their lives,
other than their immediate family, teachers
are frequently mentioned” (p. 257).
Those early images are not necessarily positive,
often convey traditional teaching
styles, and are marked with commonalties
across the United States (Joseph & Burnaford,
1994; Weber & Mitchell, 1995).
In addition to the years of “on-the-job”
experience with teaching and teachers that
one acquires as a student sitting and observing
“on the other side of the desk”, a person
has also acquired images and
stereotypes of teaching and teachers
from the person’s experiences with literature
and media. Lortie c a l l s this
“the apprenticeship-of-observation”
(1975, p. 67). These forms of print media
(literature) and visual media are part of
“popular culture,” which is inclusive of
film, television, magazines, newspapers,
music, video, books, cartoons, etc. In the
past decade the literature on popular culture
has grown dramatically as an increasing
number of educators, social scientists,
and other critical thinkers have begun to
study the field (Daspit & Weaver, 1999;
Giroux, 1994; Giroux, 1988; Giroux &
Simon, 1989; McLaren, 1994; Trifonas,
2000; Weber & Mitchell, 1995). Weber and
Mitchell (1994) explain, “So pervasive are
teachers in popular culture that if you simply
ask, as we have, schoolchildren and
adults to name teachers they remember, not
from school but from popular culture, a
cast of fictionalized characters emerges that
takes on larger than life proportions” (p.
14). These authors challenge us to examine
how it is that children even young
children would hold such strong images
and that there be such similarity among the
images they hold.
Studies of children’s literature have previously
examined issues of stereotyping
(race, gender, ethnicity, age) as well as
moral and ethical issues within stories
(Dougherty & Engel, 1987; Hurley &
Chadwick, 1998; Lamme, 1996). Recently
Barone, Meyerson, and Mallette (1995)
examined the images of teachers in children’s
literature. They found a startling
paradox: “On one hand, teachers are valued
as contributing members of society;
on the other hand, teachers are frequently
portrayed in the media and literature
as inept and not very bright” (p. 257).
Barone, et al. (1995) found two types
of teachers portrayed
: traditional, non-child
centered, and non-traditional, more
child-centered. The more prevalent type,
the traditional teacher, was not usually
liked nor respected by the students in the
stories. The non-traditional teacher was seldom
portrayed, but when the portrayal was
presented, the teacher was shown to be a
valued and well liked. They contend that
the reality of teaching is far too complex
to fall into two such simple categories; that
the act of teaching is complex. They
point out that”… the authors of children’s
books often negate this complexity of
teaching and learning, and classify teachers
as those who care about students and
those who are rigid or less sensitive to students’
needs” (p. 260). Their study led to
several disturbing conclusions: (a) The
ubiquitous portrayal of traditional teachers
as mean and strict make schools and
Teacher Images in Children’s Picture Storybooks…/ 45
schooling appear to be a dreadful experience,
(b) The portrayal of teachers is frequently
one in which the teacher is shown
as having less intelligence than the students
have, (c) Teachers are portrayed as having
little or no confidence in their students and
their abilities. Weber and Mitchell (1995)
assert that “the stereotypes that are prevalent
in the popular culture and experience
of childhood play a formative role
in the evolution of a teacher’s identity
and are part of the enculturation of teachers
into their profession” (p. 27). Joseph
and Bumaford (1994) address the numerous
examples of caricatures or stereotypes
as being somewhat different, but”… all
are negative and all reduce the teacher to
an object of scorn, disrespect, and sometimes
fear “(p. 15).
What Research Framework Guided
Our Study?
To answer our questions concerning the
elements of the children’s texts, we
required a methodological framework from
which we could examine the “character”
of the texts. We found that framework in
accessing research theories from anthropology
and literary criticism which suggested
an appropriate approach to content
analysis.
Submitting that all research directly
or indirectly involves participant observation,
David Altheide (1987) finds an ethnographic
approach applicable to content
analyses, in that the writings or electronic
texts are ultimately products of social
interaction. Ethnographic content analysis
(ECA) requires a reflexive and highly interactive
relationship between researcher and
data with the objective of interpreting
and verifying the communication of meaning.
The meaning in the text message is
assumed to be reflected in the multiple elements
of form, content, context, and other
nuances. The movement between
researcher and data throughout the process
of concept development, sampling, data
collection, data analysis, and interpretation
is systematic but not rigid, initially structured
but receptive to emerging categories
and concepts.
As we proceeded through the multiple
readings of the picture storybooks, we
attempted to foreground three main concept:
(a) To attempt to discover “meaning”
is an attempt to include the multiple elements
which make up the whole: appearance,
language, subject taught, gender
issues, racial/ethnic diversity, and other
nuances as they became apparent; (b)
The multiple readings of the selected sample
of children’s literature to understand,
and to interpret the structures of the texts
are not to conform the texts to our analytic
notions but to inform them; and (c) In
the intimacy of our relationship with the
data we are acting on them and changing
them, just as the data are changing us
and the way we perceive past and present
texts. As we encountered new texts,
we attempted to consistently return to previous
texts and to be receptive to new or
revised interpretations that were revealed.
What Was Our Research Methodology?
We used Follett Library Resources’
database to find titles addressing “teachers”
and “schools.” This resulted in a list
of 62 titles and 96 teacher images published
from 1965 to present (Appendix A). No
46 / Education Vol. 125 No. 1
chapter books or Magic Schoolbus series
books were reviewed, as they did not qualify
under the definition of “picture storybook”
(Huck, 1997, p. 198). We
specifically did not attend to publication
dates or “in print/out of print” status, as
many of these texts appear on school and
public library shelves decades after they
have gone out of print. Our approach
provided us with the majority of children’s
picture storybooks available for purchase
in the United States for purchase or
available through public libraries.
To better guide our examinations about
the images of teachers, ensure that we
reviewed the titles consistently, and in order
to record the details of the texts we
reviewed, we noted details of each teacher
representation in aspects of Appearance,
Language, Subject, Approach, and Effectiveness.
The specific details we were seeking
under each category for each teacher
represented in the sample literature are further
described below:
Appearance: observable race, gender,
approximate age, name, clothing,
hairstyle, weight (thin, average, plump)
Language: representative utterances by
the teacher represented in the book or
as reported by the narrator of the book
Subject: the school subject(s) that the
teacher was represented as teaching:
reading/language arts, math, geography,
history, etc.
Approach: any indicators of a teaching
philosophy, including whether children
were seated in rows, were working
together in learning centers, were reciting
memorized material, whether the
teacher was shown lecturing, etc.
Effectiveness: indicators included narrator’s
point of view, images or language
about children’s learning from
that teacher; images or language about
children’s emotional response to the
teacher, etc.
We also attempted to note the absence
of data as well as the presence of data.
For example, we noted the occurrences
of a teacher remaining nameless through
the book, of a teacher not being represented
as teaching any curriculum, or of a teacher
failing to inspire any critical thinking in
her students.
We entered data in the foregoing categories
about each teacher representation
onto forms, which we then reviewed in
order to group the individually represented
teachers into four more specific categories:
positive representations, negative
representations, mixed review, and neutral.
A teacher fitting into the category of “positive
teacher” was represented as being sensitive
to children’s emotional needs,
supportive of meaningful learning, compassionate,
warm, approachable, able to
exercise classroom management skills
without resorting to punitive measures or
yelling, and was respectful and protective
of children. A teacher would be classified
as a “negative teacher” if he or she
were represented as dictatorial, using harsh
language, unable to manage classroom
behavior, distant or removed, inattentive.
Teacher Images in Children’s Picture Storybooks…/ 47
unable to create a learning environment,
allowing teasing or taunting among students,
or unempathetic to students’ diverse
backgrounds. A teacher was categorized as
“mixed review”if they possessed characteristics
that were both positive and ne
gative:
for example, if a teacher were
otherwise represented as caring and effective
in the classroom, but did nothing to
halt the teasing of a child. The fourth category
for consideration was that of “neutral,”
in which a teacher was represented
in the illustration of a text, but had neither
a positive nor a negative effect on
the children.
A doctoral student focusing on reading
in the elementary school and who is
well-versed in children’s literature served
as an inter-rater for this part of the analysis.
After having conferred on the characteristics
of each category, she read
each text independently of the researchers
and categorized each teacher as “positive,”
“negative,” “mixed review,” and “neutral.”
We achieved 100% agreement in the category
of “positive representations of teachers”
and 93% agreement regarding the
“negative” images. We had 75% agreement
on the “neutral” images and 100% agreement
on the category of “mixed” images
(two images). Upon further discussion of
our qualifications for “neutral,” we were
able to agree on all 14 images as having
neither a positive nor negative impact on
the children as represented in the text.
What Were The Findings?
Our findings regarding the preponderance
of the images are detailed in the following
paragraphs.
The teacher in children’s picture storybooks
is overwhelmingly portrayed as a
white, non-Hispanic woman. There were
only eight representations of African-
American teachers, and only three of them
were the protagonists of the books: The
Best Teacher in the World, (Chardiet &
Maccarone, 1990); Show and Tell, (Munsch,
1991); and Will I Have a Friend?,
(Cohen, 1967). Two Asians, no Native
Americans, and no other persons of color
are shown in the 96 teacher images,
making the total number of culturally
diverse images represented at only 11 % of
the total.
The teacher in picture storybooks
who is sensitive, competent, and able to
manage a classroom effectively is a minority.
The teacher who met the standards
we described for a “positive teacher,”
which include an ability to construct meaningful
learning environments, compassion,
respect, and management skills for a group
of children, exists in only 42% of the
teacher images in our sample. This means
only 40 images out of a total 96 images
were demonstrative of teacher efficacy.
Some examples of the “positive
teacher”are found in Mr. Slingerland in Lilly’s
Purple Plastic Purse (Henkes, 1996),
Mr. Falker in Thank You, Mr. Falker
(Polacco, 1998), and Arizona Hughes in
My Great-aunt Arizona (Houston, 1992).
The negative images outnumbered the
positive images. Teachers who were dictatorial,
used harsh language with children
were distant or removed, or allowed
teasing among students comprised 42% of
the total number of 96 teacher representations.
Examples of the “negative teacher”
are found in the nameless teacher in
John Patrick Norman McHennessy-The
48 / Education Vol. 125 No. 1
Boy Who Was Always Late (Bumingham,
1987), Miss Tyler in Today Was a Terrible
Day (Giff, 1980), and Miss Landers
in The Art Lesson (dePaola, 1989). There
were only two teachers in the sample
who received a “mixed review,” which was
by definition a generally positive teacher
with some negative strategies, approaches,
or statements (Mrs. Chud in Chrysanthemum
[Henkes, 1991] and Mrs. Page
in Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster
[Frasier, 2000]). Fourteen teacher images,
or 15% of the total number, were represented
as “neutral,” meaning that the
teacher in the text had neither a positive
nor a negative impact on the students. The
nameless teachers in Oliver Button is a Sissy
(de Paola, 1979) and Amazing Grace
(Hoffman, 1991) are representative of
“neutral” teacher images.
The teacher in children’s picture storybooks
is static, unchanging, and flat. An
unexpected finding in this content analysis
was that teachers in picture storybooks
are never shown as learners
themselves, never portrayed as moving
from less effective to more effective.
Like the nameless teacher in Miriam
Cohen’s “Welcome to First Grade!” series,
if she is a paragon of kindness and patience,
she will remain so unfailingly from the
beginning of the text to its conclusion. If
he is an incompetent novice, like Mr.
Lemonjello in Miss Malarkey Won’t Be
in Today (Finchler, 1998), he will not be
shown reflecting, learning, and reinventing
himself into an informed and effective
educator by book’s end. Perhaps the evolution
from mediocrity to effectiveness
holds little in the way of entertainment value,
but it could hold great value in the
demonstration that teachers are complex
human beings with a significant capacity
for growth. The potential to paint realistic
portraits of teachers is present, but we
see little evidence of the medium’s desire
to construct such an image.
The teacher in children’s picture
books is polarized. Other researchers have
also noted our concerns that we as teach-
. ers represented in picture storybooks are
“healers or wounders . . . sensitive or callous,
imaginative or repressive” (Joseph &
Burnaford, 1994, p. 12). Only 15% of
the teachers presented in our sample are
neutral images, neither positively nor negatively
impacting the children in the fictional
classroom, and only two images out
of the 96 examined qualified as a “mixed
review” of mostly positive characteristics
with some negative aspects of educational
practice. Therefore, approximately
84% of the teachers represented in our sample
are either very good or horrid. The
teacher paragon in picture books “generally
is a woman who never demonstrates
the features of commonplace
motherhood impatience, frustration, or
possibly interests in the world other than
children themselves-demonstrates to children
that the teacher is a wonderfully
benign creature” (Joseph & Burnaford,
1994, p. 11). Ms. Darcy in The Best
Teacher in the Whole World (Chardiet &
Maccarone, 1990), and Mrs. Beejorgenhoosen
in Rachel Parker, Kindergarten
Show-off (M&nin, 1992) fit neatly into
the mold of “paragon.” They are not
represented exhibiting any less-than-perfect,
but realistic, characteristics of exhaustion,
short-temperedness, or lapses in good
judgment
Teacher Images in Children’s Picture Storybooks…/ 49
Several texts offer “over the top” representations
of bad teachers. The oftenreviewed
Black Lagoon series depicts
the teachers in children’s imaginations as
a fire-breathing dragons or huge, green
gorillas. The well-known Miss Nelson
series (AUard) has created substitute
teacher Viola Swamp in the likeness of a
witch, complete with incredible bulk, large
features, warts, and a perpetual bad hair
day. The teachers in The Big Box, (Morrison,
1999), put a child who “just can’t
handle her freedom” in a big, brown box.
Other books offer slightly more subtle, but
still alarming, representations of negative
teaching practice. Consider Miss Tyler,
the heavy-lidded, unsmiling teacher in
Today Was a Terrible Day (Giff, 1980),
who humiliates Ronald five times in the
course of the story; or Mrs. Bell, who in
Double Trouble in Walla Walla (Clements,
1997), takes a child to the principal for her
unique language style. Even wors
e is the
nameless teacher who repeatedly (and
falsely) accuses a student of lying and
threatens to strike him with a stick {John
Patrick Norman McHennessey-The Boy
Who Was Always Late, Bvxmn^dsa., 1987).
In less drastic representations, but still of
concern to those of us who believe that literature
informs expectations about reality,
teachers are represented as failing to protect
children from their peers’ taunts.
Teachers are shown doing nothing to
stop the teasing of children in Chrysanthemum
(Henkes, 1991), The Brand New
Kid (Couric, 2000), Today Was a Terrible
Day (Giff, 1980), and Miss Alaineus:
A Vocabulary Disaster (Frasier, 2000). If
children are learning about teachers and
school from the children’s books read to
them, we propose that there is cause for
concern about the unrealistic expectations
children could develop from such polarized
and unrealistic images.
The teacher in children’s picture
books does not inspire in his or her students
the pursuit of critical inquiry. The
overwhelming majority of texts which represent
teachers in a positive light  and
these number in our sample only 42% of
the total number of school-related children’s
literature  show them as kind caregivers
who dry tears (Miss Hart in Ruby
the Copycat, Rathmann, 1991), resolve
jealousy between children (Mrs. Beejorgenhoosen
in Rachel Parker, Kindergarten
Show-off, Martin, 1992), restore selfesteem
(Mrs. Twinkle in Chrysanthemum,
Henkes, 1991), teach right from wrong
(Ms. Darcy in The Best Teacher in the
Whole World, Chardiet & Maccarone,
1990). However, few teachers are represented
as having a substantial impact on
a child’s learning. Joseph and Burnaford
(1994) found that teachers are not seen
“leading students toward intellectual
pursuits  toward analyzing and challenging
existing conditions of community
and society…. The ‘successful’ teacher
[in children’s literature]… does not awaken
students’ intelligence. Such teachers value
order; order is what they strive for, what
they are paid for” (p. 16).
Our analysis confirms their findings.
Examples are common in which teachers
actually provide roadblocks to children’s
success. Tommy in The Art Lesson (dePaola,
1989) must wage battle to use his
own crayons, use more than just one
sheet of paper, and to create art based on
his own vision and not the tired model of
50 / Education Vol. 125 No. 1
the art teacher. Miss Kincaid in The Brand
New Kid (Couric, 2000) actually establishes
the opportunity for children to tease
the new boy who is an immigrant: “We
have a new student. . . His name is a different
one, Lazlo S. Gasky.” Young Lazlo’s
mother must help him find his way into
the culture of the school and community.
In David Goes to School (Shannon, 1999),
young David is met with negatively framed
demands from his nameless and faceless
teacher: “No, David!”, “You’re tardy!”,
“Keep your hands to yourself!”, “Shhhhh!”,
and “You’re staying after school!”
Only six books in our sample represent
teachers as intellectually inspiring. Mr.
Isobe in Crow Boy (Yashima, 1967) is represented
as child-centered and appreciative
of Chibi’s knowledge of agriculture
and botany, who values his drawings and
stays after school to talk with young Chibi.
He is represented as the catalyst for the
crow imitations at the school talent show
which gain Chibi recognition and a newfound
respect among his peers. In Lilly’s
Purple Plastic Purse (Henkes, 1996) Mr.
Slingerland is such an effective teacher that
he inspires Lilly to want to be a teacher
(when she isn’t wanting to be “a dancer
or a surgeon or an ambulance driver or a
diva . . .”). Mr. Cohen in Creativity,
(Steptoe, 1997), uses the arrival of a new
immigrant in his class to teach about the
history of immigration in this country
and to deliver a message about tolerance
and shared histories. Mrs. Hughes in My
Great-aunt Arizona (Houston, 1992) teaches
generations of children about “words
and numbers and the far away places
they would visit someday.” The nameless
teacher in When Will I Read? (Cohen,
1977) helps young Jim come to the realization
that he is a reader, and Mr. Falker
in Thank You, Mr. Falker (Polacco, 1998),
helps fifth-grader Trisha learn to read in
three months and cries over her achievement
when she reads her first book independently.
Although these are excellent
examples of how teachers can be represented
as dedicated supporters of learning,
only six texts out of the 62 in our sample
construct images of teacher as an educated
professional.
Discussion
Other researchers have found bias, prejudice,
and stereotypical presentations of
characters in children’s books, and our
study specifically about images of teachers
does not dispute those findings (Barone,
Meyerson, & Mallette, 1995; Hurley &
Chadwick, 1998; Hurst, 1981). From our
extensive 62 book sample of picture storybooks
widely available to children,
parents, and teachers, we have found a
parade of teachers who discourage creativity,
ignore teasing, and even threaten
to hit children with sticks. We have also
found teachers in children’s literature who,
in great devotion to the human good and
the educative process, save children: from
boredom, from illiteracy, and from the devastating
effects of social isolation. Our deep
concern is that the books in which the
teacher is demonstrated as intelligent and
inspiring (six in our 62 book sample) are
dwarfed by the number of books in which
the image of Teacher is one of daft incompetence,
unreasonable anger, or rigid
conformity.
We do not find images of teachers as
transformative intellectuals, as educators
Teacher Images in Children’s Picture Storybooks…/ 51
who “go beyond concern with forms of
empowerment that promote individual
achievement and traditional forms of
academic success” (Giroux, 1989, p. 138).
Instead, we find representations of teachers
whose negatively metaphoric/derogatory
surnames indicate the level of respect
for the profession: Mr. Quackerbottom,
Mrs. Nutty, Ima Berpur, Miss Bonkers, and
Miss Malarkey.
Referring back to the graduate class we
taught on representations of teachers in
popular culture, we perceived a naivete
in these teachers as to the power of the
media, to the power of stereotypes to shape
the teaching profession, and the power that
teachers have to combat the negative
images. An overwhelming majority of our
graduate students valued the traditional
teacher who maintained order, was nurturing
and caring, and whose focus was on
the emotional well-being of the child. They
failed to notice that it was an extremely rare
image in picture storybooks that showed a
teacher as an intellectually inspiring force.
Teachers cannot effectuate positive
change in their profession unless and until
they are aware of the internal and external
influences that define and shape the
educational institution. We want to encourage
reflection and conversation about
schooling and teaching, careful evaluation
of extant images in popular culture in order
to develop meaningful dialogue about
the accuracy of those images, and to
encourage teachers to examine their own
memories of teachers and how they form
current perceptions.
Implications For
Future Research
Our explorations into the representations
of teachers in picture storybooks have
led to other and further questions regarding
images that cultures create of its
education professionals.
There is much information to be
gleaned from a careful study of the portrayals
of school administrators in picture
storybooks. How are teachers and
administrators represented in basal literature?
How often do basal publishers select
literature or write their own literature
that has school as a setting and what is
the ratio of positive representations to negative
ones? Do children’s authors in other
cultures and countries create similar
negative images of educators with the same
frequency and ire as they do in the U.S.?
How are teachers and administrators portrayed
in literature for older children, as in
beginning and intermediate chapter books,
young adult novels? How have the images
of teachers and administrators evolved over
time in our culture? Was there a time in our
history that teachers were consistently portrayed
in a positive light, and was there
perhaps a national event or series of events
which caused the images to take on more
negative characteristics?
Conclusion
Before we began this study we came
across a book entitled Through the Cracks
(Sollman, Emmons, & Paolini, 1994),
which we decided not to include in our literature
sample as we perceive this text to
be more for teachers and teacher educators
than children. The text now takes on
new importance in light of our findings.
52 / Education Vol. 125 No. 1
It chronicles change on one school campus
through the eyes of an elementary-age student,
Stella. Early in the story Stella and
some of her peers begin to physically
shrink and literally fall through the
cracks of the classroom floor because of
boredom  boredom with both the content
and delivery of the school curriculum..
The teachers initially are illustrated as lecturing
to daydreaming children, running
off dittos, and grading papers during
class time; one image even shows a teacher
sharply reprimanding a child for painting
her pig blue instead of the pink anticipated
in the teacher’s lesson plan. The children
have become lost in a kind of
academic purgatory under the floorboards.
Here they remain until substantial changes
are made on their campus. The children
at first watch, then come up through the
floor to become involved in, a curriculum
that has become relevant,
child-centered, and integrative of the
arts. Teachers are then represented as supporting
children’s learning through highly
integrated explorations of Egypt, the American
Revolution, geometry, life in a
pond. Their images are shown guiding the
children in recreating historical and social
events; supporting student inquiry; exploring
painting, building, drawing, dancing,
and playing music as a way of knowing;
cooking; becoming involved in community
clean-up projects; interviewing
experts; conducting science experiments;
and more.
Linda Lamme (1996) concludes that
“… children’s literature is a resource with
ample moral and ethical activity, that, when
shared sensitively with children, can
enhance their moral development and
accomplish the lofty goals to which educators
in a democracy aspire” (p. 412). Our
point in sharing the contents of Through
the Cracks is this: the picture storybook
format has the potential to share with readers
the reality of an effective and creative
teacher. As opposed to an object of ridicule
or scathing humor, a teacher can be represented
as an intellectual who inspires
children to stretch, grow, and explore,
previously unknown worlds and communicate
that new knowledge through multiple
communicative systems. The picture
storybook has the potential to encourage a
child to anticipate the valuable discoveries
that are possible in the school setting;
it can also demonstrate to parents how
school ought to be and how teachers support
children in cognitive and psychosocial
ways. Children’s literature can
also provide positive enculturation for preservice
teachers and validation for inservice
teachers of the possibilities inherent
in their social contributions. Positive
representations of teachers have the potential
to empower all the partners in the
academic community: the children, their
parents, teachers and administrators, and
the community at large.
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Appendix A
Children’s book references
Allard, H. (1985). Miss Nelson has afield day. Dlustrated by James Marshall. New York: Scholastic.
Allard, H. (1982). Miss Nelson is back. Illustrated by James Marshall. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Allard, H. (1977). Miss Nelson is missing. Illustrated by James Marshall. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Bumingham, .J. (1987) John Patrick Norman McHennessy-The boy who was always late. New York:
Crown.
Chardiet, B, & Maccarone, G. (1990). The best teacher in the world. Illustrated by G. Brian Karas.
New York: Scholastic.
Clements, A. (1997). Double-trouble in Walla-Walla. Illustrated by Sal Murdocca. Brookfield, CT:
Millbrook.
Cohen, M. (1977). When will I read? Illustrated by Lillian Hoban. New York: Bantam.
Cohen, M. (1967). Will I have a friend? Illustrated by Lillian Hoban. New York: Aladdin.
Couric, K. (2000). The brand new kid. Illustrated by Majorie Priceman. New York: Doubleday.
de Paola, T. (1989). The art lesson. New York: Putman.
de Paola, T.(1979). Oliver Button is a sissy. San Diego, CA: HBJ.
Finchler, J. (1995). Miss Malarky doesn’t live in Room 10. Illustrated by Kevin O’Malley. New
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Finchler, J. (1998). Miss Malarkey won’t be in today. Illustrated by Kevin O’Malley. New York: Walker
Frasier, D. (2000). Miss Alaineus: A vocabulary disaster. San Diego, CA: Harcourt.
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Hallinan, P K. (1989). My teacher’s my friend. Nashville, TN: Ideals.
Henkes, K. (1991). Chrysanthemum. New York: Greenwillow.
Teacher Images in Children’s Picture Storybooks…/ 55
Henkes, K.(1996). Lilly’s purple plastic purse. New York: Greenwillow.
Hoffman, M. (1991). Amazing Grace. Illustrated by Caroline Binch. New York: Scholastic.
Houston, G. (1992). My great-aunt Arizona. Illustrated by Susan Condie Lamb. New York: Harper-
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