A teacher for president

As often happens, sf -- that sneered upon genre of boy astronauts, smart talking robots, renegade computers, and scary monsters in space -- poses some of the most pertinent and unspoken questions of our time. Slavoj Zizek argues that movies like Independence Day and the Matrix rehearsed 09/11 and subconsciously understood that the catastrophe was coming. His contention is that pop culture -- and my riff on this would be sf in particular -- unleashes the return of the repressed, and the issues that can't come into consciousness in the public sector(s) can come "up" literally and find expression here.

The new and improved Battlestar Galactica resonates strongly to me as such a subconscious-busting narrative, and watching Season 1, I am struck by the ruckus that is raised by the character of the minister of education who, through a quirk of fate, becomes president of the colonies. That she is a woman is compounded by the fact that, to quote one character, she's a "school teacher." The general view is that a school teacher cannot possibly be equipped to handle matters of state, that a school teacher cannot possibly be expected to make life or death decisions, or be "tough" enough to lead. The genius of the series (and it is brilliant on many levels) is that in the first several episodes it is made abundantly clear to us that the school teacher, to use the parlance our times, knows her shit, and is more than ready and able to do what is necessary. She can also keep a state secret, and she is adept at working with others.

What the show makes visible to us is this country's absolute scorn for teachers, a derision "informed" by the sense that teachers are weak, "feminine" (hysterical, overly emotional, illogical and so on whether physically female or not), unrealistic, and unable to take charge.

The problem/repressed knowledge offered here is that a teacher really SHOULD be president. She has all the requirements: sympathy/empathy with/for others, the ability to read the emotional needs/dynamics of the group, the ability to keep order, as well as convey information in an efficient and clear manner, and in a time-appropriate fashion. Just think how different our international relationship with the rest of the world would be if a teacher were president, or even, if more teachers ran for public office. Just think about the management of Iraq. Play fair, don't speak out of turn, Halliburton, or you'l be sent to the principal (what a GREAT idea THAT is).

I hereby nominate a teacher for the office of President of the United States. Not a business person, not a military person, not an attorney.

A teacher.

But the fact is we don't WANT teachers out and about and being civically and politically active. And in this prejudice, we, the professorate, are at least somewhat complicit. Because we don't believe -- really -- in what teachers do. We think, heck we KNOW, that we are better, smarter, more educated, more intellectual, more refined thinkers, more theoretically sophisticated, and so on and so on.

If we don't believe in what teachers do, we need to tell them that. They may not, actually believe in what WE do, and that confrontation might yield to an interesting discussion, of where both professional groups fail, where we connect, and what we might need to do as a consortium, rather than as fragile and oppositional "allies."

I still think I'd rather have a teacher as prez than a professor.