The "Nuts and Dolts" of Teacher Images in Children's Picture Storybooks: A Content Analysis

Abstract

A recent children's book shares the story of a teacher. Miss Malarkey, home with the flu, narrates her concern about how her elementary students will behave with and be treated by the potential substitutes available to the school. Among the substitutes represented are Mrs. Boba, a 20-something woman who is too busy painting her toenails to attend to Miss Malarkey's students. Mr. Doberman is a drill sergeant of a man who snarls at the children: So ya think it's time for recess, HUH? Mr. Lemonjello, drawn as a small, bald, nervous man, is taunted by the students with the class iguana and is subsequently covered in paint at art time (Miss Malarkey Won't be in Today, Finchler, 1998). In this text, which is representative of many that have been published with as central characters, are portrayed as insensitive, misguided, victimizing, or incompetent. We perceive these invalidating as worthy of detailed analysis, based on a hypothesis that a propensity of painting in an unflattering light may have broader consequences on cultural perceptions of and schooling. Our ethnographic content analysis herein examines 96 of as they are found in 62 picture storybooks from 1965 to present. It is our perspective that these in part shape and define the idea of Teacher in the collective consciousness of a society. Those of us in education realize our students come to us with previously constructed of the profession. What is the origin of those images? When and how are these 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, are ... integral to the form and substance of our self-identities as teachers (p. 32). They suggest that ... by studying and their influence, could play a more and effective in shaping their own and society's perceptions of and their (p. 32). We have supported this probing of images by analyzing children's picture storybooks, examining their meanings and metaphors where they intersect with 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 in playing that conscious role in defining their work. We submit that children's picture storybooks are not benign. Although the illustrations of are often cartoon-like and at first glance fairly innocent, when taken as a whole they 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 of 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 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 children and parents see of teacher are generally negative, then they will create a world view of teacher based upon stereotype. The many negative of in children's picture storybooks may be the message to readers that are, at best, kind but uninspiring, and at worst, roadblocks to be torn down in order that children may move forward successfully. …