Who is a teacher and what does it mean to teach?

In contemporary society, teachers face the daunting task of educating tomorrow’s leaders and citizens while preparing all children and youth to flourish in an increasingly global, diverse work. In this course, UGS 302: To Inspire, Bore or Save: Critical Examinations of Teachers in Popular Culture and Discourse, we examine dominant representations of teachers found in popular culture, including contemporary ones that are both critical of and sympathetic to teachers and their work. Using readings from research and news media, fictional and documentary film, music videos and song lyrics, we explore how popular culture takes up and represents what it means to be a teacher and to teach.

Students consider how these representations shift and change over time, across different spaces and sociocultural contexts. The course offers multiple opportunities to engage in several layers of thinking including summarizing, reflecting and analyzing/critiquing. Students do this through a diverse and eclectic set of activities including: writing weekly summaries of the readings, interviewing teachers, analyzing picture and chapter books, exploring archives of Texas teachers and images of teachers found in various artistic prints, and writing an original analysis or research paper focused on some aspect of teachers and teaching. Ultimately the course aims to help students decipher between flat, myopic meanings ascribed to teachers and the process of teaching and recognize its depth, complexity, and deeply political nature.