Betsey Holsbery's school: place, gender, and memory

Breaking the silence: The lived experiences of rural women teachers

“…Through this project, I sought to document how women teaching in secondary schools narrate stories of power and marginalization in rural Iowa schools. Women teaching in rural secondary schools' narrative experiences of power and marginalization do not occur in isolation from broader social narratives and discourses that construct the nature of rurality, social practices of teaching, and gender roles in these spaces (Kim, 2016;Clandinin, et al, 2007;Weiler, 2014). Thus, to understand rural women teachers' experiences of power and marginalization, it was necessary to attend to the social construction of their personal and professional identities as well as of the rural school contexts in which they are embedded.…”

“…Gender is persistent and central to shaping our lives, whether we are conscious of it or not because "it is one of our key lenses" for viewing each other as social creatures (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2017, p.60). The gender imbalance of a traditionally "women's profession" like teaching makes this focus on gender even more important (Alsup, 2006;Munro, 1998, Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2017, Weiler, 2014, especially considering the gap between the women who teach and the men who supervise them. As Bushnell (2003) explains, women work "within a historically gendered system in which mostly female teachers answer to the authority of mostly male administrators" (p. 267).…”

“…As Hobbs (1992) states "community can be thought of as a social space occupied by members who perceive common traditions and ways of doing things" (p.31). Rural schools are a visible and central focus for their communities, making the social and cultural relationship between school and community stronger than in larger areas that might provide more varied options for social participation (Weiler, 2014;Crockett et al, 2000;Nachtigal, 1992;Ulferts, 2018). The rural school-community relationship cannot be minimized.…”

“…I separate women's experiences in rural communities from the larger community because of the deeply ingrained traditional gender roles that have historically prevailed in these places (Weiler, 2014;Wagner, 2014;Pini et al, 2014). Despite this as a space rife with gender-based tensions, Pini et al (2014) posit that the "neglect of the rural by feminist educators is that we have been influenced by stereotypes of rural women and girls as traditional, insular and reactionary, and thus not productive or constructive subjects for feminist inquiry" (p. 453).…”

“…The nostalgic view of the rural woman teacher is still rooted in the one room schoolhouse that constructs a certain kind of rural woman teacher and a certain kind of rurality-a selfless and caring woman teacher and a harmonious place devoid of conflicts over ethnicity or gender-and in so doing contribute to the memory of a harmonious, virtuous, and illusionary American past. (Weiler, 2014, p. 537) This revisionist view glosses over the gendered experiences of women who lived and labored in these spaces while still under the public authority of men (Weiler, 2014). In modern rural contexts where schools and communities still place heavy importance on maintaining norms and traditions (Crockett, et al, 2000;Youngblood Jackson, 2010), the added weight of this historical view of women teachers as virtuous nurturers who knew their domestic place could place a burden on how women teachers today are perceived in rural spaces.…”