The cruel optimism of educational technology teacher ambassador spaces

Abstract

In the last 20 years, neoliberal ideology has heavily influenced the U.S. education system, opening public education up to private corporations as a profitable business endeavor. In this paper, I inquire ( Pierre, 2018 , 2021 ) into educational technology (edtech) teacher ambassador programs through a blog post I wrote as a former second-grade teacher and ambassador for a prominent K-12 edtech company. I argue one way these exploitative spaces operate is through educators’ attachment ( Berlant, 2011 ) to the idea of being a good enough woman teacher ( Pittard, 2015 ) fueled by neoliberal discourses of “keeping up” ( Walkerdine, 2003 ). In other words, the material-discursive apparatus of these program spaces produces a “cruel optimism” for what we could be, rather than what we are, which in turn produces further profit for edtech companies. Overall, this paper grapples with how these programs may appear or feel mutually beneficial for educators, yet are often only monetarily beneficial for edtech companies and their investors.