Chantel Jiroch, an Atlanta-based photographer originally from Miami, decided to give her son’s teachers a photoshoot session as a gift. When sharing the vibrant portraits, which showcased each teachers’ personality to her childhood friend, Careshia Moore, they got inspired with an idea.
Moore, a former educator also from Miami, envisioned a visual project that would not only honor but also tell the meaningful and human stories of the people in charge of shaping the minds of young Americans.
After a yearlong process of meeting with teachers all across the country, they authored a book “Raising America: A Visual Celebration of Educators.”
(Courtesy Chantel Jiroch)
The new book, “Raising America: A Visual Celebration of Educators” features 12 Miami teachers.
Through portraits, the book highlights the personal narratives of 80 teachers, 12 of whom are from Miami.
“ We wanted to start a national conversation around education because it’s often overlooked,” Jiroch said. “ We don't really understand the weight that teachers carry to actually educate our kids every day.”
At a time when public school educators are facing many challenges in the classroom such as new government policies, low salaries, as well as having to deal with the dominating influence of social media, Jiroch said their mission in celebrating the unsung heroes couldn’t come at a better time.
“In the world that we live in now, with social media and the temperament of kids… they are not being raised in the house anymore, honestly,” Jiroch said. “They're raising themselves, and then they're going to class and wanting the teacher to fix it. Those are the conversations that need to really take place on a national level because we're falling way behind when it comes to education in this country.”
In the book, one chemistry teacher holds a periodic table of elements on his shoulder, another poses decked in a school-glue costume, and another is in a hip-hop dance pose.
The goal was to get the teachers out of their comfort zones and show their personalities outside the classroom instead of having yearbook-style portraits, Jiroch said.
“Some people were singing Whitney Houston, and that's how I captured some of their smiles,” she said.
Cesare Turner, a music teacher in Miami, was pictured holding his violin. He is band and music director at the historic Arthur and Polly Mays Conservatory of the Arts in Miami and previously spent 13 seasons with The South Florida Youth Symphony as teacher and conductor, the organization that once nurtured him as a young violinist.
“ The kids have this perception of what they think music is and how it should sound,” Turner said. “They don't know all the stuff that goes into it. From my perspective, [I show them] the preparation needed for performances, the preparation for learning how to play an instrument properly, learning how to play a specific piece of music and the discipline that goes along with it.”
The book also includes some questions that Jiroch and Moore asked the educators and their respective answers. The questions range from, “Who was your most influential teacher?” to “What is your favorite karaoke song?"
“Being a part of the process has been really great…some of the questions that were asked, seeing some of the stories from other teachers and about what they think about certain things and aspects of just life in general, not just education,” Turner “I thought that was kind of cool.”
When it comes to being an educator in today’s world, Turner said one of the big challenges he sees are the funding cuts to art programs in elementary schools, middle schools and high schools.
“It's a shame because these are skills that students learn that help them in other areas of life, in other subject areas as well,” he said. “When we take out the fun stuff like music, dance, theater, art, it just makes the kids kind of shut down.”
(Chantel Jiroch)
Cesare Turner, a band and music director at Arthur and Polly Mays Conservatory of the Arts in Miami, is featured in the book.
Jiroch agreed that this is a trend in other cities outside of Florida too. In Atlanta, where she lives with her kids, she said she doesn’t see as many art programs as she remembers seeing growing up in Miami when she studied dance at the New World School of Performing Arts.
”You have to have the funding now to get music lessons and dance lessons,” she said. “You have to be rich just to become somebody, even in the athletic space, they're cutting funding in so many ways.”
Another problem Jiroch hopes will be addressed with the book is teacher shortages. With the stories and photographs she said she hopes young students feel inspired to pursue a career in education.
”I would hope younger kids would see the value in raising, teaching the next generation,” Jirosch said. “And then it gives [education] a human perspective. So maybe they will relate to the stories the other people in this book are telling about when they were young and what they thought they were gonna do, but they ended up being in education and how it's been a great experience for them.”
Raising America website: https://www.raisingamericaedu.com