Exploring the Territory: Teachers as Cartographers

Teachers are, by nature, explorers. This column compares the professional lives of teachers in an age of accountability measured by standardized assessments to those of explorers and cartographers of the American West. The author explains that these explorers were able to see more in the terrain than lines on maps and quantities of data collected—they were able to view the territory aesthetically. Like these explorers, teachers and policymakers must map and catalog what they find. Yet there remain some aspects of the classroom‐territory that defy reduction to data retrieved. The author proposes that classrooms are a territory worth exploring in multiple ways and that the aesthetic qualities of the terrain should also be considered. Classrooms are aesthetic environments that evoke emotional responses, and some of their qualities are important goals of schooling that students and teachers cannot easily measure but need to experience and explore firsthand.