ABSTRACT
Given the contemporary absence of a grand political project, of strong institutional structures, of definitive political lines and of clearly orthodox identities among American Left, the women teachers was nevertheless able to assemble a group of women who demonstrated a collective political understanding. In addition to their participation in projects of the Left, the five women share a secular Jewish background, and teaching experiences in inner-city public schools. Taken as a whole, the narratives do not reveal any necessary link between Judaism and progressive politics. One woman relates that her parents were active in socialist and Jewish causes, but several other references suggest quite a different kind of combination. Teacher as worker is, of course, an implicit metaphor in the discourse of dominant theorists, representing an embodiment of the standardization, quality control, and technical efficiency which they value. And it is the same metaphor explicitly critiqued by critical theorists, who associate it with mechanization, exploitation and lack of human meaning.
