University of Florida Thesis Or Dissertation Formatting Template
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
IMAGE OF THE TEACHER IN THE POSTWAR UNITED STATES By PATRICK ANDREW RYAN A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2008 1 © 2008 Patrick Andrew Ryan 2 To my mom, Vernance B. Ryan, and my brother, Miles, and to deceased family members, who supported me along the way but never saw the realization of my goal of a doctoral degree: Helen and Andrew Beste (my maternal grandparents), Miles F. Ryan, Jr. (my dad), Raymond E. Converse, Jr. (uncle), L. Dolores Ryan (aunt), and Dr. Celestine B. Converse (aunt). A lot of love nurtured me to this moment. 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I appreciate very much the counsel, encouragement, and friendship of my advisor and committee chair, Dr. Jane S. Townsend, and of my doctoral committee members: Dr. Sevan G. Terzian, Dr. Danling Fu, and Dr. John O. Cech. I thank them for always listening and helping. I value Dr. Townsend’s knowledge about inquiry, classroom discourse, and narrative analysis and her support for my interdisciplinary approach in this study. She and I hold similar scholarly perspectives, including about the importance of integrating literacy and the arts. During my doctoral program, Dr. Townsend has generously shared her time with me to discuss course papers, research processes, independent projects, teaching methods, and my professional plans, and she has offered practical suggestions in a thoughtful manner and with a warm sense of humor. Because of Dr. Townsend’s dedication, not only have my doctoral studies been productive and intellectually rewarding, but they have also been enjoyable. Dr. Terzian welcomed me as an English educator into the disciplines of history and the social foundations of education. Through working with him on the history of radio and the history of the teaching profession in the United States, Dr. Terzian’s guidance furthered my explorations of the Our Miss Brooks radio program, which proved to be the catalyst for this study’s research. As a professor, he empowers students to ask difficult questions and enables the quest for answers by recommending scholarship and connecting issues related to analysis. I am grateful for Dr. Terzian’s support for my professional growth. Dr. Fu’s scholarship heightened my awareness of the potential disjuncture between home and school cultures regarding educational abilities, methods and goals, so that understanding different social contexts allows for bridges between cultures. Popular media representations of teachers can serve as bridges between schools and their communities by allowing for 4 communication from different perspectives about expectations for teachers’ roles and educational purposes. In fostering a congenial atmosphere for intellectual inquiry in her seminars, Dr. Fu helped students relate literacy, language learning, and social and political structures to personal experiences, and she promoted advocacy for the disadvantaged. Dr. Cech’s research and work in literature, creative writing, broadcast media, and cultural studies provided me perspectives on how to interpret the teacher image in relation to perceived audiences. In our engaging seminar conversations, Dr. Cech explored the multiple ways we experience, negotiate, and contribute to cultures through different types of texts. Because of Dr. Cech’s scholarship, I appreciate further the intertextuality of various media, and I value his insights about how we project archetypes through the media. I am additionally grateful for all the kind assistance I received in my research from Head Librarian Patrick Reakes in the Allen H. Neuharth Journalism Library at the University of Florida and from librarians Rosemary Hanes and Jennifer Ormson in the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. For technical expertise in formatting this study, I am also indebted to Ken Booth at the Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Lab, University of Florida. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................4 LIST OF TABLES...........................................................................................................................8 ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................................9 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................10 The Media, the Message, and the Schoolmaster.....................................................................10 Statement of the Problem........................................................................................................12 Purpose of this Study..............................................................................................................14 Limits of Scope.......................................................................................................................16 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................................................18 Introduction.............................................................................................................................18 The Teacher Image in the Media............................................................................................18 The Teacher in Literature ................................................................................................18 The Teacher in Film ........................................................................................................27 The Teacher in Television...............................................................................................41 Cross-Cultural Comparisons of the Teacher Media Image .............................................45 Historical and Cultural Context of the Postwar Era ...............................................................46 History of Education in the Postwar Era ................................................................................47 The Representation of Teachers as Moral Role Models.........................................................50 Understanding Gender Roles in the Postwar Era ...................................................................53 3 METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................................59 Data Collection .......................................................................................................................59 The Teacher Image in Radio ...........................................................................................59 Representations of Classroom Learning..........................................................................60 Further Postwar Film Images ..........................................................................................61 Data Analysis..........................................................................................................................63 4 REPRESENTATIONS OF CLASSROOM LEARNING IN POSTWAR TELEVISION AND FILM .............................................................................................................................78 Role of the Teacher.................................................................................................................80 Pretender Inquiry: Behavioral Management and Testing................................................80 Information-Seeking and Sense-Making.........................................................................83 Wondering .......................................................................................................................85 6 Role of the Student .................................................................................................................88 Information-Seeking........................................................................................................88 Wondering .......................................................................................................................90 Progressivism, Essentialism, and Constrained Student Inquiry .............................................95 5 THE TEACHER AS A MORAL ROLE MODEL...............................................................103 Motherhood and the “Ethic of Care”....................................................................................104 Teaching Entails Sacrifice ....................................................................................................110 Promoting a Moral Code ......................................................................................................116 6 DEFINING THE IDENTITIES OF FEMALE AND MALE TEACHERS .........................123 Female Educators and Gender Role Expectations................................................................123 Expectations for Male Educators..........................................................................................129 7 CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................................140 Summary of Findings ...........................................................................................................140 Teachers’ Roles .............................................................................................................140