(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to Prairie Pulse.

Coming up in a little bit later in the show we'll profile Dilworth, Minnesota artists Ber Vasquez, but first our guests now is Dr. Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz.

And I hope I got all that right.

- You did.

- With the university of North Dakota.

And you're with the college of education and human development.

- Yeah.

- Well, we're here to talk about a book you wrote and some other things but before we do that, tell the folks a little bit about yourself and maybe your background.

- Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me on this is a treat.

You know, in terms of my work I am a historian of education policy and school reform and I've been a professor for some time but this is only my second year down at UND.

I'm originally from New York city.

And then before coming here I was a professor outside of Washington, DC.

And we moved here for just an incredible opportunities.

And university of North Dakota is doing some really exciting things and quality of life to raise our four kids out here.

- Well, and of course, you're here today to talk about kind of the educational system, even in in the United States and, and your book here and I'm gonna put it up "Blaming Teachers" professionalization policies, and the failure of reform in American history, a mouthful there.

So tell us about the book and why you wrote it.

- Yeah, well, so why did I write this book?

You know, I've been working on this project for some time and I think there are a couple of things that came together.

You know, the first is that as a historian from early on I had this understanding that public education is not just about classrooms.

These aren't just kind of these sealed off institutions but public schools are windows onto American society.

So we wanna learn about political debates or social anxieties or the aspirations of the nation.

You know, public schools are an amazing place to look and that's certainly playing out now today.

And then at the time the project was starting we were kind of right in the midst of this NCLB moment.

And what I was hearing just a ton of was it's those darn teachers, right?

A lot of blaming the teachers a lot of trying to reform teachers.

And so it was kind of what was going on at that moment, sent me back to, you know, how did we get to where we are right now.

So that's really what the book was about.

- Yeah, so why is it so easy to blame the teachers and you know, and why is it that professional is sort of politicized - Yeah, I, it's a good question, you know and I think there's a couple of reasons why it's so easy to blame teachers today.

You know, I think the first reason is because we've always been doing it, it's become kind of like the grammar of public schooling.

Right, you know, we have, why do we sit kids in rows and desks?

Why do we organize them by grades?

Why do we blame teachers?

That's what public school has been about, right.

I think another reason why we blame teachers is because, you know, in some ways they're easy targets they become the consummate Straumann and it's much easier to blame teachers than it is to say, gosh, we have to reform the entire system or think about social inequality or something like that.

You know, and the reason why we originally started blaming teachers goes back to a story from really the mid 19th century with the rise of public schools where there was not a lot of faith in public school teachers and particularly the women that were recruited to schools.

And so embedded in this blame that we see was a lot of gender discourse about why women weren't up to the task, why they weren't doing well enough.

And so that really has set the table for this policy story that has shaped public schooling.

- Yeah, but can you talk about I guess the New York city school system in particular which you do write about.

- Yeah.

- And the struggles teachers have there and they have faced over the years?

- Yeah, yeah.

So the book is sort of about New York cities in some ways, that's kind of how we enter into the story.

And in a lot of ways in the New York city is this kind of exceptional story.

There's not a lot of cities, it's like it, it's huge there, but in the other ways though it is this kind of evocative case, and that it's been a theater for all kinds of policy debates that we have.

The way unions sort of started there and spread out across the country, the debates and teacher education.

So one of the things I write about in the book is how big cities like New York city have become this kind of harbinger for education policy that we see across.

But one of the things I see in the book is that, you know, from very early on, there's a lot of faith in the ability of public schools to fix social problems.

And then when those schools kind of just fall short, right?

When we're they're not doing the things that we hope they would do there's a whole lot of hand ringing there.

And attention turns pretty quickly to teachers, right.

And policymakers.

And this goes back to the, you know, mid 1800s and plays out in the present still will say, gosh, you know, if only we had better teachers well then we'd have better schools, right.

And so what teachers have been trapped in is this, the cycle of reform that has kind of put one policy over another in an attempt to kind of make them better in some way.

But the key is that those policies, what they have ended up doing is really just creating this bureaucratic system of schooling, where it was really focused on standardization and measurement and efficiency.

And so even though we constantly talk about this idea of teacher professionalization, what teachers I think a lot of them would tell us is that, you know, my authority has been taken away, my autonomy has taken away.

And gosh, I don't feel like I have a whole lot of respect and those are the critical markers of profession.

So it really is this story about how we talk about profession in name, but the things that we've done to teachers have really kind of cut them off at the knees.

- Yeah, well, you talked about unions right there at the moment but you write about the pros and cons of teacher's unions.

Can you expand on?

- Sure, yeah, You know, I think the first thing to understand is that the unions that we have are a reflection of the public schools that we have, right.

If our public schools were organized in a different kind of way then we would not have teacher representation the way we do.

But the reason we have it, the way this is is because there really is no other opportunity for teachers to have their voices heard.

And I think that, you know, there's been this kind of complex history of the role of teacher unions.

Sometimes they've clashed heads with communities but I think what we're seeing right now is a new page in the history of teacher unionization where there's a lot of collaboration with communities.

There's a lot of advocacy not just for what's best for teachers, material interests but what's best for schools.

What's best for communities.

So we've seen when teachers are going on strike it's not really just for these bread and butter issues but it's also for more school support services and I'm really standing in defense of public education.

And I think one of the things that we're seeing lately is that unions have played a really important role even in this COVID moment.

Right, is that so many parents and policymakers and politicians are anxious to just open up schools, right.

Get kids back in so that we can have whatever normal feels like.

The union has been a really key player in saying we want that too, but we also need safe schools.

Right, and I think teachers have a lot of reason to feel somewhat cautious because as any of them could tell us, there've been many times they've gone into school and haven't had hand sanitizer or haven't had bathrooms, you know soap in the bathrooms or things like that.

And so now I think, you know, they need some more than kind of a general promise that there will be masks and things.

There needs to be some kind of evidence of that because it is a huge risk, not just for them but for all the families that send their kids back.

And the union has been a key role in pressing for that even as it's been unpopular.

- Yeah, and you mentioned COVID and let's talk about that just a minute.

I guess now, especially during the COVID for the last, quite a few months, we've seen how schools are sometimes sort of childcare centers for parents.

Can you talk about the immense challenges COVID has put on the education system?

- Yeah, it's a great point.

You know, I think one of the things that's been most interesting about this pandemic is that it really has illuminated for so many of us all the things that public education does for a community, Right, I think a lot of people might've been flippant, you know, gosh a teacher's work is so simple and they're just, you know just work from nine to three and, you know, and it's just about teaching kids and how hard could that be?

And I think what they're realizing now is that not only is the task of working with children enormously complex, but it's not even just about that.

Right, schools are about so much more they're about warm meals for kids in need.

They're about safe spaces for kids who might not have one and also critical services for kids who have disabilities.

And so I think that really has brought a lot of attention or have been eyeopening for folks and that parents struggling at home are realizing that, you know, the work of schooling is just hard business.

- Well and of course even the social interaction that we all need.

But what about, you know a lot of parents have struggled during COVID, you know whether it's because you know, they've had hard work or really weren't equipped to effectively monitor and ad who home school learning with their child.

Can you talk more about that?

- Yeah, I mean that being a full-time working parent being home with kids and trying to monitor their learning is a huge challenge for me personally with my four kids but for any parent, you know, and I think also part of the complexity though is that, you know, schools were really struggling to figure out how to do this.

They didn't have a whole lot of time.

They certainly didn't have a whole lot of resources.

You know, we didn't really see this pandemic coming.

So the first time and back in the last spring, when we shut down schools there was no time for teachers to really think about what does meaningful online learning look like.

It was just this kind of scramble.

And I think even that's been the same, you know, I think we spend a lot of time this summer, not telling teachers where we were, what we were going to do.

And there were no additional resources given to say you know, folks let's talk about what high quality online instruction looks like and how we create that.

I think what a lot of kids are experiencing is this kind of, you know, teachers are just putting things together as best as they possibly can and it's complicated.

You know, in our own home internet was out this morning.

So what do you do?

- What do you do then?

You got to stick with online learning for a moment.

It seems to have failed for many children or at least been a struggle for many I gotta say it that way.

Can you comment on that?

Why is it that, I mean, why is that been that way for so many?

- You know I just, it's a good question.

I don't have a set answer for that.

What I would say though is that I think that while some kids have struggled, some kids have done it and they've realized this has actually been great for them.

I think also it's hard to judge the efficacy of online learning by what we see happening right now because of what I was just talking about a moment ago is that this has been put together right so quickly that teachers really didn't have time to learn all these different platforms to think about how they might use them.

And so, you know, I think that's hard, but I also think it's something that you mentioned earlier is absolutely right, is that there's a huge social component and learning.

It's really hard to duplicate that.

I mean, I feel that in my own classes, when I teach adults that, you know, we have amazing conversations online and I'm so grateful for the hard work my students do but it's just not the same as sitting face-to-face and having those conversations.

- With that I mean, do you foresee I hope you've got a better crystal ball than me.

That schools will be open for all in-person starting fall 2021, even though quite a few are definitely going in person now.

- I sure hope so.

I sure hope so.

You know, and I think it'll rest on a few things.

How well we do with the vaccine, you know, how you know, can we delay gratification in other ways?

Right, I think that if we're willing to not do some other things that we might, that schools might be a perfectly safe space, right.

And I think in terms of the university they've been doing a great job.

They're talking about vaccinating faculty they've been doing a ton of testing and there are already lots of classes that are face-to-face.

And so that's been working pretty well at the university.

- With that said, what do you teach at UND?

What courses and what approach are you taking with your students?

- Yeah, well, I have had the great opportunity to teach and to create some new classes moving forward.

So I teach history of education, which is no shock.

I'm also teaching a course on scholarly writing which is a lot of fun cause it's what I do kind of in my profession.

But then there's also new courses on teacher education and next semester on education policy.

And in terms of, you know what I'm doing with my students, you know, there's this mixture of trying to cover the same ground that we would have had those same rich debates and conversations that we would have face-to-face but also really being mindful that this is such an extraordinary exceptional time.

And I think we all have to have a lot of grace with one another.

I think that's really critical.

You know, I find it problematic just to think that we will all end this exactly where we would have had there never been a pandemic.

Right, especially when we think about kids and student learning these are arbitrary measures that we set up, right.

This idea of what a child is supposed to know what a certain place, is really are just arbitrary.

And so I think we have to kind of there has to be some kindness we give to ourselves, to our society to say we got through this pandemic, right?

And now we're gonna move forward and not fret over you know, these kinds of measurements and things like that.

- What is your best advice, I guess for students who are thinking of going into the teaching profession?

- Yeah, well go to a college of education, the university of North Dakota, don't try and run around that.

I think that there's, there are pathways that people can get into the classroom without getting a professional preparation and that's problematic.

I think doesn't arm them with the kind of, you know, professional knowledge and experience that they really need.

I think, learn about the communities and the kids that you're gonna work with.

And from the start, really realize that what you're doing is not just limited to your classroom, but that your classroom is shaped by the communities that kids are coming.

You know, whether or not they've had a warm breakfast, do they have a safe place to play and all of these things.

And so to think about what you're doing not just about this homework assignment but the bigness of how you're engaging a kid in their life.

- Well, let's get back to your book for a moment.

You write about the ways in which female and male teachers get along or are treated in the education system.

Can you touch on this?

- Yeah, you know, gender is a really important part of understanding the teaching profession.

You know, we can't talk about teachers as if it's a genderless profession.

The fact of the matter is today and historically it's been a field dominated by women and that's been by design, but that kind of composition has also meant that teachers have been limited in a lot of ways.

So one of the examples that you can see that at play is that we have teachers, women but then they're managed by largely male populations, right.

And when we think about policymakers and reformers so it's a lot of these dynamics of men talking about how women ought to do their work better.

And so that is a historical phenomenon that has played out.

- Yeah.

So why was teaching such a female dominated profession in the 19th and 20th century?

And how much is it still that way today or how much has it changed?

- Yeah, well, you know, so one of the stories I write about in my book and I have to tell people when I can talk about this history is that, you know, in the mid 19 century public schooling was not a new idea.

It was actually a really unpopular idea.

A few folks were not interested in it.

The idea of public education felt like you know, governmental overreach, public waste of money and things like that.

By the 1850s though something changes and that's immigration we've got huge numbers of immigrants coming along the Northeast and the United States.

And all of a sudden there becomes a lot of anxiety about what's happening or not happening in the home.

Right.

And so from very early on this public schools become a way to sort of fill it fit in for what's not happening in these deficient homes these homes that were perceived as deficient and that teachers were perceived as these kind of stand and mothers who could bring these kinds of values that they maybe weren't getting so very early on that's what brought women to the field.

In addition to that there was a sense that we have these systems.

We need a lot of folks we need folks who are rule followers, right.

And we need folks who aren't gonna cost us a lot of money.

And at that time everybody was like, it's the ladies.

(laughing) - Well so how do you think the public views teachers as a whole today?

- Yeah, you know, I think the teachers live on a two-sided coin.

They kind of flips at the drop of a hat.

And one side of that coin is this idea of teacher as savior, right.

We are celebrating them as self-sacrificing public servants.

You know, when you think about last March the kind of parades that we were having in communities of kids and parents waving to teachers as they're driving through and all the parents and gosh, I'm so grateful for the teachers I didn't realize all you did.

But that flips pretty quickly and on the other side of that coin is a story of teacher blame, right?

Where teacher is the problem.

And we're blaming teachers for being greedy or self interested.

If they're not doing what we want them to do.

And that's very much where we are right now.

Right, and a lot of communities were blaming teachers and unions for the fact that schools aren't opening when teachers really are just saying, Hey we want schools to open just safely.

- Sure.

- Right.

- So, you know, teachers' salaries always been talked about, I think, as long as I've been living.

So why is that such a debate and why teacher salary seemed to be low?

- Yeah, Yeah, Well, it traces back to this gendered history, right?

Initially there was the argument that we're paying teachers, we're paying women what they're worth and early on the idea was that women workers are not worth as much as male counterparts.

Right, and I think that because of this kind of bureaucratic nature of schooling we need a lot of teachers that there arguments that even though in districts, the largest expenditures go to teachers, go to teacher salaries.

It's still not very much, as you just said, right.

Teachers are paying much, are earning much less than they would in other professions which is a endemic problem that schools are gonna have to face and are facing when it comes to recruiting.

- Well, as people might get a chance to read your book does it relate as New York city as it would in Grand Forks, North Dakota?

- Yeah, you know, I think the book really tells a story about what's happening in the United States, right?

So it's focused on New York city but there are examples from across.

And I think that what we see happening there are key differences in communities, right.

There are almost 14,000 school districts in the United States and they are each local, right.

And based on these distinctive features but there's also like this similar attributes and that's what the book talks about.

And so, yeah, I've been surprised moving to Grand Forks after growing up in New York city about how much actually is the same.

It's not as different as I might've thought it would have been.

- And what's been the reaction so far to the book?

- It's been very positive.

Yeah, I've been, it's been very positive and well received by other historians and academics and it's got a great reception popular audiences.

I was able to do a launch of the book with Randi Weingarten who is the president of the AFT.

- Well, with that said, where can people get more information or find a copy of your book?

I'll just say, "Blaming Teachers" - Yeah, there you go, yeah.

You know, it's widely available online so you can get it through the publisher at Rutgers University Press, amazon.com bookshop if you wanna support local booksellers.

Okay.

- Yeah - Well we're out of time, but thank you so much for joining us today and best of luck to you.

- Appreciate it.

- Stay tuned for more.

(upbeat music) Ber Vasquez is an artist who specializes in painting, ceramics and other forms of art.

Originally from Peru, she found her artistic calling after moving with her husband to Dilworth Minnesota.

(piano music playing) - All my subjects have to be related to my background where I am from.

I'm coming from an Inca culture.

I was born in Peru.

I live in front of a port.

So, you know, it's very active.

We are close to the mountains to the Andes and we're so close to the Amazon as well.

And so we are connected by culture and environment.

I think my town is a lot of proudness about our culture.

I think I normally realized that I was more interested in art when I came out here, at Moorhead.

This is not a very multicultural place.

I couldn't find a job.

And so I began searching for my inner self.

That is when, you know, all my love wake up for art.

Paintings because of the colors that they are, you know, they are alive, they are bright.

I think they speak, you know, about my technique a lot.

I install them here sometimes in my house For me is so important because my paintings take me more than a year.

I really love it to have it with me because I come back I come back.

I can still, you know, be pushing away.

I can see many people also, you know, just being attached to one media and they keep that.

But that is not how my brain works.

I would like, you know, somebody to study my brain probably and to see why I switch so much.

So what happens with me is mostly is the theme.

I choose a theme and the theme brings me to the media.

They can be sculpture, they can be ceramic or they can be paintings or they can be like a mixed media.

Many times I have to even learn how to do it.

So I have to teach myself.

Material mostly is just a way for me to inform about a specific topic.

I make a lot of things for fun, but I'm also, I'm very political.

I have one topic about Joe Arpaio the sheriff.

That used to make all Latinos were pink underwears.

So I make his face using underwears.

So that was new because I have to sew, I have to embroider.

I never did that before.

So I get moved by the topic.

I began wondering who are the people that married you know, these dictators.

Who were the women that are okay having husbands that, you know, commit a genocide crimes.

So I began embroidering their faces.

But I was thinking that they will not work by itself if the men are not behind them.

And also in the scale it's a compromise, it's an acceptance this situation of terror.

(piano music playing) So this is my husband's face.

He always was complaining that people never say hello to him.

Like he blends so much here and he was like, you know all the time dropping the topic to me that people don't recognize me but I had a meeting with this person.

Like, I have a common face, you know, come on features.

And you know, many people don't have a sculpture of themselves.

And because we are regular we are common.

This piece I think has the topic of see me, recognize me.

And he, I think he was happy that, you know, somebody makes something of him.

I think I don't try to ask my viewers to feel guilty or to feel sad.

If they feel something they will search for more information.

Or they will just look at it as it is, you know a pleasant object or you know art piece and walk away.

I don't feel offended.

It's just something that I really love.

If I can offer just something, you know, to touch these topics or to help even to open communication, I'm happy about that.

(soft music) - Well, that's all we have for Prairie Pulse this week.

And as always, thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Woman] Funded by the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008 and by the members of Prairie Public.