Journalistic/Image
Title: Do Ask, Do Tell
Summary: The political cartoon depicts Uncle Sam in a new light, as the bisexual actress, Marlene Dietrich. This altered icon is the teacher in a grade school classroom and a young boy is smiling admirably at the authority figure he appears to relate to. This image is addressing the absence of the term “sexual orientation” in the definition of ”diversity” as it refers to teachers.
Topic: Accrediting all schools of education
Category: Journalistic/Image
What is it? And political cartoon posted with an article
Publication Information: Rethinking Schools online journal: Summer 2007, Milwaulkie, WI
Author: Rosanna Bikadoroff
Location: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/21_04/ask214.shtml
Accessed: Mar. 10, 2009
Support:
- Therese Quinn and Erica Meiners, co-writers of “Do ask, Do tell”
- Roxanna Bikadoroff, illustrator of image
- National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), widely used accrediting agency
- Uncle Sam, patriotic figure
- Marlene Dietrich, openly bi-sexual movie star
Both Therese Quinn and Erica Meiners wrote the article accompanying the image. They provided the issue sexual orientation of which Roxanna Bikadoraoff, the illustrator, brought to life. The organization that is not upholding the tolerance of sexual orientation is NCATE. The illustration shows a patriotic Uncle Sam embodied by an openly bi-sexual woman (Marlene Dietrich).
Audience and Agenda: Rethinking Schools is a non-profit organization staffed by volunteers who are, largely, educators or parents. Rethinking Schools puts out numerous publications including textbooks, collections of writing, magazines and a quarterly journal. The main objective put forth by this organization is to bring real life to educational materials and address issues in schools today. The targeted audience is teachers, students, parents and educational activists.
Usefulness: As this publication primarily aims to bring to light existing issues being ignored, this article provides a perfect example. Although the elimination of the “social justice” disposition in the NCATE standards has been a public topic, Rethinking Schools is just as angered about a missing disposition that has not up for public debate: “Sexual Orientation.” In a society that strives to “teach tolerance” the omission of a crucial talking point stands out. Although the writers did well to bring attention to the number of students claiming to have homosexual tendencies, the statistics for sexual orientation of teachers seems just as important and yet is not included.
Works Cited:
- The web page with image and its article: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/21_04/ask214.shtml
- The “History” page for Rethinking Schoolshttp://www.rethinkingschools.org/about/history.shtml
- The “About” page for Rethinking Schools journal: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/publication/rs_journal/journal.shtml
- E-mails written by illustrator Roxanna Bikadoroff
- Wikipedia page about Marlene Dietrich: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlene_Dietrich
