Given that:
- social constructions of gender, race, class, sexuality are salient enough to impact the subjective experience of young teachers
- the direction & extent to which they do is an unknown
- school films throughout the last half century have been drawn to a hero narrative, in which an idealistic teacher, often a young white female teacher, embark on a tumultous, emotionally charged journey, similar to a coming-of-age story
- these audiovisual texts may affect stakeholders’ mindframes: teachers, students, general public, parents, admins
- there is a tradition stretching back a half century of these types of school films
- teachers’ work is found narrowly challenging but ultimately rewarding and worth the effort
- films do draw from basic truths of lived experience, uplifting and consumer friendly
- authority challenged within the currently existing safe yet oppressive framework
- great white hope teacher-marytr narrative serves interests of existing power structure (read: white middle-class values)
- hegemonic portrayals of teaching life mislead, charismatic martyr types romanticize and belittle teaching life
- scapegoat lesser teachers and avoid actual, structural critique, invoke culture of blame
- potential to bias public to locate actualized change in savior figures decontextualized
- one important component of becoming a teacher is the affective componenet, the identity development
- retention, esp of second stage teachers, positively linked to sense of personal and professional congruence
- retention is negatively impacted by unrealistic expectations, the gap between the imagined and the real
- teacher ed reliance on methods and jargon are insufficient, do not address teachers’ subjective experience
- critical identity construction and carving a space proceed from grappling with hegemony
- unity of spheres, personal and professional, is healthy for individual, desirable for sociey, efficacious for policy
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