3: Strong Rural Educators

And one shall never quite forget The voice that called from dream and play, The firm but kindly hand that set Her feet in learning’s pleasant way,

And, when the world shall link your names With gracious lives and manners fine, The teacher shall assert her claims, And proudly whisper, “These were mine!”

Lines from At School-Close by John Greenleaf Whittier, 1892

Within academia, assumptions about rural schools and communities as disconnected, homogenous, and simplistic have largely been dismantled by scholars who study teaching and learning in rural places. A 2020 global pandemic and racial reckoning has now repositioned rural schools and communities in the eye of the public. It is clear even to the most casual observer of current events that rural places are integrally connected to suburban and urban communities both socially and economically. Rural communities are a critical source of natural and human resources, the site of the nation’s factory food production systems, a receptacle for the nation’s garbage, and the location of its prisons. Post-2020, the project to attract, retain, and develop teachers for rural schools can no longer be seen as a “problem” limited to rural schools themselves and of little concern to anyone outside of a rural community.