Teachers as mothers in the elementary classroom: negotiating the needs of self and other

Abstract

In this paper, I interrogate the implicit and largely unexamined relationship between mothering and elementary teaching as they are informed by dominant notions of caring in the United States. In an environment where students were seen as not receiving adequate care at home, the teachers in this study felt a need to act as mothers in their professional lives. The consequences of such “deficit thinking” for students are well explored in the literature on teaching and learning. What has been less well explored are the consequences of this teacher‐as‐mother notion for teachers themselves. Drawing from the narratives of six women elementary school teachers, I suggest that assuming the role of mother to one's students not only devalues students' identity and experience, but limits teachers' ability to adequately care for themselves.

Keywords:

• heteronormativity
• motherhood
• teachers/educators
• women
• narratives
• primary (elementary) education

Notes

1. In particular, McBride and Grieshaber (2001) point to the connections between caring for students and the ways teachers of young children have been mothered, and thus seek to enact, mothering.