Challenging Stereotypes: The Social Construct of Teachers

The woman on the cover of That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Like a Teacher by Sandra Weber and Claudia Mitchell is not one that anyone would tie with a book about education. Society for decades has had an imagine in their head of what a teacher looks like, and the cover image is not that. Like our class demonstrated, our drawings of teachers don’t reflect the teachers we’ve actually had, but the teachers we’ve seen through the lens of our society. “These images are so pervasive in television and films that they have the power to rewrite our memories, papering over the fashionable, casual, or colourful attire that some teachers really do wear, urging us to incorporate a small range of standard ‘teacher’ looks into our very identity as teacher.” (Weber and Mitchell 1995, 171) This quote demonstrates that the social construct around teachers is powerful enough to rewrite memories we have of our past teachers to envision something

Since teachers are thought to be asexual, anyone who doesn’t fit the stereotypical teacher image we all know, doesn’t seem to have the skill and education to be a teacher. People have a set imagine in their head about what a teacher looks like, and if someone doesn’t fit this imagine, the title may be their verbal response. People would never question your certification or your IQ if you disclosed that you were a teacher, but the way you look may be. When people imagine a teacher it's the clothes and appearance they think of, not their education, which is what actually make them a teacher. “When we think of teacher, or remember a specific teacher we have known, it is often the way they dress that stands out.” (Weber and Mitchell 1995, 58) The woman on the cover is being remembered and talked about for her clothing and her sexuality because teaching and sexuality don’t go