The cruel optimism of educational technology teacher ambassador spaces

Abstract

In the last 20 years, neoliberal ideology has heavily influenced the U.S. education system, opening public education up to private corporations as a profitable business endeavor. In this paper, I inquire (Pierre, 2018, 2021) into educational technology (edtech) teacher ambassador programs through a blog post I wrote as a former second-grade teacher and ambassador for a prominent K-12 edtech company. I argue one way these exploitative spaces operate is through educators’ attachment (Berlant, 2011) to the idea of being a good enough woman teacher (Pittard, 2015) fueled by neoliberal discourses of “keeping up” (Walkerdine, 2003). In other words, the material-discursive apparatus of these program spaces produces a “cruel optimism” for what we could be, rather than what we are, which in turn produces further profit for edtech companies. Overall, this paper grapples with how these programs may appear or feel mutually beneficial for educators, yet are often only monetarily beneficial for edtech companies and their investors.

Keywords

neoliberalism cruel optimism teacher leaders edtech teacher brand ambassador good teacher

Introduction

As a PhD candidate I’ve had a variety of gut-wrenching ah-ha moments where theory entangled with my past experiences, bringing forth a since of understanding and ah. For instance, I remember sitting in a course reading through Marx (1990), critiquing capitalism, and thinking about how a year before I was teaching standards to second graders that glorified this same economic structure.¹ Moments like these brought forth feelings of anger and deception, as if the world lied to me, veiling truth and manipulating me into doing its dirty work. I was angry and mortified that it took 26 years of living and 16+ years of education for someone to provide me with the language to understand and explain my own experiences as a white, working class, woman in the U.S. This paper is an exploration of just one of those instances and a piece of a larger project within my graduate studies.

It was frustration that dragged me into a PhD program. I felt ill equipped to be in the classroom, while at the same time feeling overextended, exhausted, and never good enough. I taught second grade in a southern U.S. state for 4 years. During this time, I also worked on the side for an edtech company as a teacher ambassador, a space that I found intellectually stimulating, motivating, and joyful. However, this ambassador space produced conflicting feelings for me as I moved into my graduate program. Not ready to let go of a space where I felt seen, desired, and good, I held on, refusing to reflect on these experiences for as long as I could. I didn’t want to lose the resources, the community, or those feelings, but as I progressed through my course work and encountered theory, it became harder and harder to not engage with the conflict I was feeling. I began to question my relationship to the program, how I was positioned, and the broader impacts of these spaces. More specifically, I started to question what it was about this space that made it so hard for me to let go.

While researching teacher ambassador programs for a separate project, I came across a blog post I wrote as an educational technology ambassador and classroom teacher in 2018. When thinking through how I wanted to format this paper, I knew I wanted to include my own personal experience as a U.S. classroom teacher who found fulfillment through participation in an educational technology teacher ambassador program. Finding this blog post felt like beautiful irony, my own published words floating out there stating exactly what I imagined describing. Suddenly, I found—or rather encountered—my “data” jumping right off the screen “[creating] a sense of wonder” (Maclure, 2013). In this paper, I explore my own entanglement (Barad, 2010) with this blog post. Both past and present me “bound to the other” (Barad, 2010: 265), working to produce a new understanding of teacher ambassador spaces.

This work could be considered post-qualitative inquiry (Lather and Pierre, 2013; Pierre, 2018, 2021; Pierre and Jackson, 2014), where there is “no methodology at all, no preexisting rules, processes, methods, categories” (Pierre, 2017). For instance, I didn’t start this study through questions that then led to a specific methodology that then led to analysis. Rather, this study has always been on going, it’s entangled in my experiences and the theories I’ve engaged with for 4 years as a doctoral candidate. Finding my Nearpod blog post wasn’t just “beautiful irony,” it was a new encounter with a past me. I reread those words, I felt those emotions rush back, and yet how I came to that space had changed. I now embodied new theories and new ways of being. In that moment, my blog post became a space of inquiry. As I read, I found myself putting concepts to work (Pierre, 2015, 2017).

In this paper, I don’t commit to a specific theorist or methodology in the process of engaging in this inquiry (Pierre, 2018). Instead, I embrace theories and concepts as “a sponge: a material that can absorb things. We hold it out and wait to see what gets mopped up” (Ahmed, 2017: 22). In this way, my writing/thinking/analyzing are an opening for understanding rather than a crystallization or representation (Jackson and Mazzei, 2011: ix). As I inquire into my Nearpod blog post, I lean on the support of theoretical concepts (such as cruel optimism, desire, and the good enough woman teacher), past experiences, and contextual information regarding the U.S. education system and edtech companies. It is through this engagement that I hope to illuminate the complexity of teacher ambassador program spaces.²

I start this paper by providing a brief description and history of edtech teacher ambassador programs and then present the first portions of the Nearpod blog post as a way of framing this space. Throughout the paper, I break the post into three sections, treating each section as a layer into my analysis. In the first portion of the blog post, I think through the relationship between neoliberal capitalism and teacher ambassador programs. I describe neoliberal capitalism as an “institutionalized social order” (Nancy Fraser in Denvir, 2018) that relies on the production of affective discourses that encourage individuals to become entrepreneurial subjects as a way of “keeping-up” (Walkerdine, 2003). I argue teacher ambassador programs rely on the production of these discourses and ideologies to obtain educators who are willing to participate—that is, ambassadors.

I use the second portion of the blog to inquire into the desires (Deleuze and Guattari, 1977) and attachments produced through the “cruel optimism” (Berlant, 2011) of edtech teacher ambassador program spaces. Berlant (2011), a critical cultural theorist, describes “cruel optimism” as a “cluster of promises” (p. 23) within a space, yet these promises are often unattainable and rarely in our best interest. For me, this promise was presented through the form of the good enough woman teacher, which feminist theorist and educator, Elizabeth Pittard³ (2015), describes as the teacher “who works to consistently prove her ‘worth’” (p. 19). Yet, as Pittard notes, this neoliberal subject position can never truly be obtained. With its shifting ideals and expectations, reaching for the position of the good enough woman teacher is a never-ending, up-hill battle.

Through my writing/thinking/analyzing, I attempt to describe why these programs may feel beneficial to educators who opt-in (educators like myself). I use the last portion of the blog post to explore the exploitative nature of these spaces, further analyzing how educators’ labor produces value for edtech companies. Overall, I frame this paper through my own experience, exposing my entanglement with the subject position of the good enough woman teacher, in the hopes that this vulnerability brings forth connection and generates further dialogue around the relationship between educators and edtech teacher ambassador programs.

Teacher ambassador programs

The term “teacher ambassador program” gained traction in 2017, appearing in various news articles (e.g., Kovalskys, 2017; Parker, 2017; Singer, 2017; Willcott, 2017), although programs like these have been around for over 25 years, (see Apple Distinguished Educators, n.d.; Blog, n.d.). Rather, than having one spokesperson representing the company, these programs create a multiplicity of brand ambassadors for the company product (Saldaña et al., 2019). A 1996 article on consumer marketing on the effects of digital-media and communication lays out the benefit of the ambassador model. Boutié (1996) states:

Thus, one can imagine a shift from the “mass spokespersons” currently used by brands (sponsored athletes and celebrities, experts and professors for health-based products…) to a widely-distributed network of consumers ambassadors. This evolution would have several benefits: the shift from a trickle-down opinion-leading process (common in marketing) to a trickle across opinion-forming process (common in politics) would bring both more credibility to the brand and a Keynesian multiplier effect to the process–each “evangelizing” cycle producing more goodwill than was available at the start of the cycle, just like the circulation of currency in a liberal economy. One can thus conceive that, for marketing-intensive durable goods where peer advice is all-important (cars, hi-fi, computers…), a portion of the heavy advertising budget could be redistributed to reward “brand ambassadors,” for instance, through discounts, financing of peripheral club activities etc. You could achieve a lot of “cyber word-of-mouth” with the several hundred dollars of advertising it takes to sell a car (p. 53).

This article, released at the same time as the creation of Apple’s Distinguished Educator program (n.d.), depicts the model acquired by popular teacher ambassador programs. The formation of these programs allows for a shift in the company’s budget. Rather than spending large amounts of money on advertisement, they can invest in a space where individuals feel valued and thus do the marketing work for them, potentially attracting more users and thus more advertisers⁴ (see Carolan, 2021; Kovalskys, 2017).

Nearpod wasn’t the first edtech company to create an ambassador program, but they were one of the first to credit their success to teachers and their ambassador program (e.g. Carolan, 2021; Kovalskys, 2017; Lima, 2017). Founded in 2012 by three entrepreneurs and friends (Dahlberg, 2021), Nearpod is now used by “75% of K-12 public schools in the U.S.” (The Nearpod Team, 2021). Originally an interactive website and application where teachers could “create content, engage students digitally, and assess them in real time” (Rivero, 2016), it has now grown to offer premade, standard-aligned lessons, gamification, VR elements, and integration with a variety of other edtech tools (see How Nearpod Works, n.d.). This award-winning education platform (Dahlberg, 2021) put out a call for their first group of PioNears (teacher ambassadors) 2 years after its founding. Advertised as a space for “teachers willing to share their Nearpod expertise in meetups, trainings, and conferences” with the promise that they “will provide specialized training, individual support, promotional material, and many more resources” (The Nearpod Team, 2014), this program became a premier space for educators. Nearpod became known in some edtech community spaces for its willingness to lavish its PioNears, hosting generous, fully funded community events such as catered dinners and cocktail hours (see The Nearpod Team, 2018). One year they went as far as brandishing a two-hour yacht trip down the Miami canals (Nearpod, 2019). They might have created an easy to use and practical tech product, but they also worked hard to enable a feeling of worthiness and respect from teachers by rewarding ambassadors with additional resources and rewards. In an interview, one of the founders stated, “Starting the PioNears ambassador program was one of our best decisions during the early stages of our growth” (Kovalskys, 2017). It became clear that by investing in their ambassador program, they were further investing in the success of their company.

Educational technology (edtech) companies attract educators through discourses of leadership and exclusivity.⁵ It is believed the promotion of edtech company products from ambassadors leads to an improvement in product development and sales (e.g., Kovalskys, 2017). In 2017 Guido Kovalskys, one of the founders of Nearpod, wrote an article describing how the PioNear teacher ambassador program supported the growth of the company. He states:

Ambassador programs create a formal channel between product teams and end users. At Nearpod, our PioNears are in frequent contact with our product team: receiving early access to many new features, providing in-depth product feedback, engaging in user-testing, consulting on lesson and feature design and more. This way our team makes sure hard data is always complemented with anecdotal evidence of how real teachers are using our product – ultimately helping us build more useful tools for teaching and learning (Kovalskys, 2017).

The success of these programs relies on mutual benefits. While these programs employ language centering teacher leadership (see Common Sense Ambassadors, n.d.; Nearpod PioNears, n.d.; Wakelet, n.d.), the main goal is to increase product profit (see Kovalskys, 2017; Saldaña et al., 2019). Both Nearpod and other researchers describe this as a “bottom-up” approach (Saldaña et al., 2019; Wan, 2021). By investing in educators, companies have more opportunities to prompt favorable relationships with schools and districts (Saldaña et al., 2019). These companies focus on creating an environment where teachers feel seen—something they may lack in their own school space (see Crawford-Garrett et al., 2017; Jones, 2009; Pittard, 2016). Yet, I argue, this glorification is exploitative.

Teachers are a key factor in the success of edtech companies. Not only through the use of their product but also through feedback, online marketing, and teacher-to-teacher training (Saldaña et al., 2019; Singer, 2017). Below you will find the beginning of a blog post I wrote as a teacher brand ambassador (PioNear) and classroom teacher for Nearpod in 2018. The blog centers my relationship with the PioNear program, highlighting how my success in this program underlined feelings of accomplishment as a classroom teacher. In the following sections, I use the segments of my blog post to inquire into the relationship between educators and ambassador programs: the connection to neoliberal capitalism, the “cruel optimism” of these spaces, and the exploitation of teacher labor.

Excerpt from blog post: Nearpod made me a leader

I state:

In the education world becoming a leader can be hard as a new teacher. There is this mindset that if you don’t have the experience you are not able to share. I’m here to tell you that this is wrong. Our amount of experience does not validate our knowledge and growth. We all have the ability to learn from each other.

I was very lucky to be hired three days after graduating from college in mid-December for a teaching position. Within a week I moved seven hours away from home to a small town in rural south Georgia and started teaching fourth-grade science and social studies. I was twenty-two and thought the world was my oyster. Being the youngest employee at my school by almost 10 years, I felt more like a fish out of water. Although, it wasn’t long before I found my niche, technology. I was quickly able to step up and become the leader I naturally am because of discussing and incorporating technology into my classroom, specifically programs like Nearpod. (Thompson, 2018)

Teacher ambassador programs and the relationship to neoliberal–capitalism

In the above section, I described feelings of otherness within my school, specifically how my age made me feel “not-enough” for the space. Finding my “niche” in technology allowed me to become an expert in something and provided me with further credentials. I argue this desire to “become the leader” is in direct relation to neoliberal–capitalism. As the term neoliberalism proliferates, my use of the term aligns with the idea of neoliberalism being a “conscious, political project, undertaken to break the power of organized labor and develop new methods to extract profit from more and more of human social life, including from the legacy institutions of the welfare state” (Horgan, 2021: 51). Another way of describing this is through Nancy Fraser’s description of capitalism as an “institutionalized social order” (Fraser in Denvir, 2018), that is, neoliberal capitalism. At this point in time, these two terms (capitalism and neoliberalism) are deeply reliant on each other. They are entangled. For instance, the power of neoliberalism is its ability to seep into every surface of society, and thus “the economy cannot be transparently abstracted from the state or the family” (Duggan, 2012). As an ideology, it is “characterized by an emphasis on individual responsibility and consumerism, and converges with other oppressive systems, such as patriarchy, imperialism, and white supremacy” (Gillespie & Thompson, 2021: 7).

The economy, work, and production are thus entangled in our everyday lives in a multiplicity of ways. Within the field of education, neoliberal policy such as No Child Left Behind and Race to The Top worked to further enhance the infiltration of capitalism in school spaces within the U.S. (Ravitch, 2013, 2017; Thompson & Jones, 2021). These policies amplified standardized testing, allowing for the opening of new markets to benefit the production of tests and test scores. Neoliberalism, as an ideology, percolates, leaching from structures to take hold of bodies. Thus, the very fact that I felt the need to be a leader, rather than to just be, illustrates the neoliberal discourses that pushed me to do more to keep up (Walkerdine, 2003). Horgan (2021), a labor researcher, states, “under capitalism, work becomes the only avenue for self-development, respect and fulfillment, [there] is a genuine fear of a loss of self” (p. 13). Incorporating technology into the classroom became entangled with my identity as an educator. It was who I was—the tech teacher. While I enjoyed technology, this joy was in constant competition with the desire I felt to maintain my status as the tech teacher within my school.

In a past project, my researcher partner and I described the trauma of neoliberal capitalism on women teachers’ bodies. We describe how the production of keeping up “inflicts everyday traumas on the teacher’s body as she enfolds the neoliberal ideas of value and begins to judge herself and shape her actions through the lens of the business model saturating her workplace: the successful production of the commodity” (Thompson & Jones, 2021: 4). This research illuminates how the push to integrate new curriculum, tools, tests, etc., in classrooms hovers over every teacher, and with it comes temptation and urgency to earn recognition, degrees, and certifications that display and justify our experience and expertise. Neoliberal discourses incite hustle culture through discourses of individualism and competition (Hall and Pulsford, 2019; Harvey, 2005; Jaffe, 2021). There is a complexity to the provocation brought on by these discourses within the field of education—a space dominated by women. As a group we already have so much making up to do in terms of “reaching the top,” some more than others depending on race, sexuality, and class. Thus, edtech companies found an optimal productive space. Through neoliberal policy they’re allowed entrance into schools, and through ideological discourses some educators often willingly hand themselves over in hopes of gaining something in return. For me, becoming an ambassador for a tech company allowed me to set myself apart. I was the Nearpod girl (see) and a reliable technology resource. Thus, I had a role to play within my school space.

The first step in becoming a teacher ambassador is earning the status of certified educator (see Common Sense Ambassadors, n.d.; PioNear, n.d.; Wakelet Community, n.d.). The acceptance process for certification programs usually requires educators to show their use of the product, participate in a training, and complete an application (see Certified Educator, n.d.). From there, educators can go on to apply for advanced certification and start training other teachers in the use of the product. Companies promote the continuation of earning more certificates and acceptances into more elite spaces through the promise of community, early access, free upgrades, swag (promotional items for you to wear and distribute), and specialized training materials (see Certified Educator, n.d.). While there are “perks” to this labor, there is little to no monetary compensation.

Micro-credentials—in the form of badges and certificates—highlight the invasiveness of neoliberal–capitalism surrounding teachers. Certification programs, such as Google and Microsoft Certified Educators (see Certifications Overview, n.d.; Microsoft Certified Educator, n.d.), exist because of the competition forced upon teachers to keep up. No longer is it good enough to just have an education degree and/or teacher certification, we must work to individualize ourselves (Horgan, 2021; Jaffe, 2021; Walkerdine, 2003). Our neoliberal society requires a very specific work ethic (e.g., Weeks, 2011) if we desire to survive (and maybe thrive) within the system. Walkerdine, a feminist scholar, describes this as the “constantly changing successful entrepreneur of oneself” (2003, p. 241). Here, to keep up we must continuously remake and redefine who we are.

Neoliberalism is fueled by discourses of doing and being more (Pittard, 2015), climbing the ladder and getting to the top—a place that is ever moving and changing (Thompson & Jones, 2021; Walkerdine, 2003). Some argue that in our neoliberal–capitalist education system educators come face-to-face with ideological disempowerment, “which is the deprivation of one’s power to identify the meanings of [her] work” (Tsang and Qin, 2020: 205). When educators struggle to find meaning in their workplace, it makes sense they would turn outward to define who they are. Some may turn to social media (see Carpenter et al., 2022; Shelton and Archambault, 2020; Shelton et al., 2020; Shelton et al., 2021), or some—like myself—turn to educational technology ambassador programs. These programs, like Nearpod’s PioNear program, highlight the intensification of non-instructional work teachers take-on to produce themselves as productive teachers and potentially advance themselves and their school (Tsang and Qin, 2020).⁶ The productive teacher is in direct relation to Pittard’s (2015) concept of the good enough woman teacher, where our work as educators is entangled with the desire to be good enough.

Pittard, a feminist education scholar, discusses the production of the good enough woman teacher through pervasive neoliberal discourses. She uses “good enough” rather than good or great to “emphasize…the systematically embedded discourse that no woman is ever smart enough, pretty enough, successful enough, or (insert any word of your choice) enough to be considered good enough, much less great” (Pittard, 2015: 18). These discourses work to discipline and govern (Pittard, 2015; Walkerdine, 2003) teachers in the production of human capital. As education is a field dominated by individuals who identify or are perceived as women (Biklen, 1995; Grumet, 1988), it is vital we inquire into how these women are positioned in all education spaces. As Pittard (2015) notes, “the good enough woman teacher is one who works to consistently prove her ‘worth’ by producing students with high test scores…” (p. 19). Like Walkerdine (2003), Pittard highlights how the neoliberal subject must shift in the fight to prove their worth—to feel good.

Below is another section of the blog I wrote for Nearpod. This next section speaks to the “cruel optimism” (Berlant, 2011) of teacher ambassador programs, where a “cluster of promises” (Berlant, 2011: 23) generates unsatiated consumption. I argue ambassador program spaces produce desire (Deleuze and Guattari, 1977) that in turn encourages a misrecognition (Berlant, 2011) of the underlying purposes of these programs. Thus, our attachment to the idea of being a good enough woman teacher produces a “cruel optimism” for what we could be, which in turn produces further profit for edtech companies.

Excerpt from blog post: The “cruel optimism” of teacher ambassador programs

I state:

Nearpod was the facilitator for me becoming a leader in my school. I was lucky to have another co-worker who was a PioNear for Nearpod guide me through taking on that role. She quickly saw the confidence and passion in me that I felt was quickly being overshadowed by first-year worries and stress. Without her push and guidance, I would have missed out on many opportunities. She told me about the Nearpod Certified Educator program and walked me through the process, and then directed me to their PioNear program. Through the PioNear program, I have had the ability to step out of my comfort zone and grow as an educator. I have met new friends and learned many new tools for my classroom. And more importantly, I now have something I can share and bring to the discussion table with other educators, Nearpod. While not everyone is lucky to have a Kim, I’m here to tell you that if you want to be a leader the possibilities are out there for you! (Thompson, 2018)

Cruel optimism and the attachment to being “good enough”

I wrote this blog post after attending a Nearpod conference for their certified educators and teacher ambassadors. An all-inclusive trip to Miami where we talked to other educators, learned about new product updates, and discussed how we were implementing Nearpod in our school spaces. At this event, I gave an interview describing how I utilized Nearpod in my second-grade classroom and was recognized by Nearpod for launching the most lessons from the lesson library in one school year. I was a walking poster child for this company, but why? There was something about Nearpod that had me hooked, and it was more than just “liking” the product. Nearpod made me feel good. As if I was a part of something. As if I was special.

Ambassador programs are affective economic spaces. Here, the affect produced in these spaces has the potential to economically impact the growth of a company. I lean on feminist new materialist, like Jones et al., (2019), in my understanding of affect. They state that affect is the “more-than-human force that increases or diminishes a body’s capacity to act, while…emotion [is] ‘the way experience registers personally at a given moment’ (Massumi, 2015: 3)” (p. 2). Thus, one-way companies work to increase sales is through the production of affect or more specifically, desire. Deleuze and Guattari (1977) assert “Desire is not bolstered by needs, but rather the contrary; needs are derived from desire” (p. 27). The force of desire has the potential to produce action, but to do this it must be reproduced, maintained, and/or enhanced. Gao (2013), a Deleuzian scholar, states “Desire begins from connection. Life strives to preserve and enhance itself and does so by connecting with other desires” (p. 410). Thus, the desire produced through the relations between edtech companies and educators is connected to a broader set of discourses, such as neoliberal capitalism. Over time this desire may shrink, expand, evaporate, and multiply as its connections shift.

Currently, ambassador programs produce desire through the material-discursive relations of these spaces. One discourse in particular being that ambassadors are good teachers. For instance, companies like Nearpod advertise on their website that ambassadors are established leaders, innovators, and collaborators (PioNear, n.d.). This desire to be one of these special teachers allows us to misrecognize the purpose or intent of these spaces. Berlant (2011), an American scholar and cultural theorist, describes “misrecognition” as the projection of “qualities onto something so that we can love, hate, or manipulate it for having those qualities—which it might or might not have” (p. 122). Nearpod’s ability to foster desire and misrecognition made it successful. The co-founder himself stated that, “Starting the PioNears ambassador program was one of our best decisions during the early stages of our growth” (Kovalskys, 2017). The material-discursive apparatus of the PioNear program—with its affirmations, free swag, and accolades—produces misrecognitions. Personally, it allowed me to believe that Nearpod could fulfill my desire to be a good teacher. The PioNear space validated my goodness, and thus I felt I could firmly declare that Nearpod made me a leader.

My escape to Nearpod wasn’t an escape from the good enough woman teacher, but rather a running toward. I was attached to Nearpod—to the product, to the space it created, and to the gratification. Berlant (2011) describes such attachments as “optimistic.” Here, optimism is defined as the force that moves you out of yourself and into the world in order to bring closer the satisfying something that you cannot generate on your own but sense in the wake of a person, a way of life, an object, project, concept, or scene (Berlant, 2011: 1-2).

While my attachment was to Nearpod, my optimism was for the good enough woman teacher. In the PioNear program, I saw a “cluster of promises” (Berlant, 2011: 23). I could be a part of the conversation. I could be a leader. I could be good enough.

This optimism isn’t kind, nor threatening. Rather, this optimism, like capitalism, is vampire-like (Marx, 1990). It compels unsatiated consumption. Berlant (2011) states, Cruel optimism…is an incitement to inhabit and to track the affective attachment to what we call “the good life,” [emphasis added] which is for so many a bad life that wears out the subjects who nonetheless, and at the same time, find their conditions of possibility within it (p. 27).

The notion of the “good life” directly relates to Pittard’s conception of the good enough woman teacher. Here, obtaining what society deems good requires “keeping up,” and thus becoming a “constantly changing successful entrepreneur of oneself” (Walkerdine, 2003: 241). The “cruel optimism” of the good enough woman teacher is that it sucks the life out of us.

While the PioNear program brought moments of gratification and feelings of being good enough, the promise of more was always there. I could always do more—earn more money, more shoutouts, and more credentials. The cruel optimism of the promises in these spaces is the “endless chase for a destination you’ll never reach” (Hsu, 2019). These companies need teachers. They have built the success of their products off our labor: promoting, testing, and implementing.⁷ Thus, these companies rely on neoliberal discourses of good enough-ness to function. Such discourses, and the attachment to what is good (Berlant, 2011; Pittard, 2015), push teachers like me to turn to companies like Nearpod for places of fulfillment. It is as if we hand ourselves over to be exploited.

The next section is the last portion of the Nearpod blog. I use this portion of the blog to highlight the exploitative nature of teacher ambassador programs. Overall, I work to explain how the exploitation of teacher labor is more than just a lack of wage compensation. This work has led to the rapid, high-grossing success of a company (see Herold, 2021; Wan, 2021), yet these programs position teachers as “leaders” rather than stakeholders in the company.⁸

Excerpt from blog post: The disillusionment of teacher ambassador programs

I state:

Nearpod itself creates leaders. It allows for teachers to collaborate, share, and be creative. When teachers use Nearpod in new and creative ways other teachers take notice. This launches opportunities for you to be more successful as a teacher, and other educators are interested in learning more about your experiences. I encourage you to take advantage of the limitless ways you can use Nearpod, engage your students, create better learners, and inspire other teachers by telling them what you are doing! (Thompson, 2018)

Who really benefits from teacher ambassador programs?

This blog attempts to persuade more teachers to not only use Nearpod but also to join the Nearpod PioNear program, thus using me and my voice as a marketing tool. They know this message is more powerful and pervasive when it trickles from the mouth of a teacher rather than an employee (see Carolan, 2021). It seeks to hook teachers the same way I was hooked.

Nearpod started out as a tool for me; a practical classroom resource that I could share with others. It quickly transformed into something all-consuming. Jaffe (2021), a labor journalist, describes how, “Capitalist society has transformed work into love, and love, conversely, into work” (p. 325). Our society requires the ability to transfigure, quickly transforming ourselves from laborer to individual. It necessitates all facets of our lives as commodifiable and thus valuable. Things we love quickly become new forms of capital.

What started out as a hobby, hastily turned into a side-gig.⁹ In both of these spaces—hobby and side-gig—I worked, spending hours learning new features, creating lessons, and sharing content. This work was only identified as labor worthy of compensation once I signed a contract with Nearpod to be a PioNear, and thus could be employed for sub-contract positions. This highlights how leisure and work “bleed into each other under contemporary capitalism” (Horgan, 2021: 34). I argue the blurring of these lines allows for teacher exploitation to stay hidden, disguised as mutual benefitting relationships.

Exploitation occurs through the masquerade of compensated labor (Marx, 1990; Jaffe, 2021). If we could see it clearly, we might not choose to opt in. Teacher ambassador programs work hard to position themselves as mutually beneficial. They describe the work teachers do as work that was already being done—talking to other teachers, posting on social media, and speaking at conferences. Here, the work teachers do is naturalized, seen as not really work at all. Marx states, “The constant tendency of capital is to force the cost of labor back towards the absolute zero” (Marx, 1990, p. 748). Teacher ambassador programs allow EdTech companies to cut labor cost, trading in wages for glorification and graphic t-shirts.

I know I am walking a fine line, just as Terranova (2000), a digital labor scholar, states, “Free labor…is not necessarily exploited labor” (p. 48). Free labor becomes exploitative when others are profiting from that labor (Jaffe, 2021; Jarrett, 2014; Terranova, 2000). Nearpod’s estimated annual revenue for 2021 was $58.7 million (see Nearpod Competitors, Revenue, Alternatives and Pricing, n.d.). How much of this money did certified educators or PioNears see? Certificates and swag may function as a form of social capital, allowing for teachers to potentially earn recognition and feel good, but they do little for teachers’ already low salaries.

Not all capital is equal, which is why the problem with teacher ambassador programs is lack of wage compensation. Being compensated with free swag and access isn’t equitable. At some point, teachers need fair compensation for the work they have put in to build a successful product—and company. Kovalskys (2017) stated,

Within the first year of starting Nearpod, we had teachers coming out of the woodwork to help us build and improve our product – providing in-depth feedback, volunteering to help edit lessons, promoting best practices on their blogs, introducing us to other teachers in their school, and more.

Here, he describes the work teachers were willing to do for a product they loved. Work I am sure was paid for in “thank you” and free access. Yet, in 2021 Nearpod was acquired by Renaissance Learning for $650 million—an all-cash deal (Wan, 2021). Who were the ones to reap the benefits of this return? Not the teachers whose feedback and promotion led to record-breaking success. No, this “all-cash deal [delivered] hearty returns for investors in Nearpod” (Wan, 2021). Just as Jaffe (2021) states, “In a capitalist society, the things we create are never really ours, neither to keep nor to share” (p. 331). We can wear all the branded t-shirts, tweet all the promotional tweets, and speak at every glorified EdTech conference, but none of these actions will transform our hard work into ownership.

Conclusion

My relationship with Nearpod is complex. As a teacher educator, I still use Nearpod in my courses for instruction, and the PioNear program is a huge part of my teacher story. While I may still have free access to a program that costs $100+ a year and a dozen t-shirts with the company logo in my closet, I also still have thousands of dollars in student debt. We know teachers aren’t paid well in relation to other careers that also require degrees and experience (Abamu, 2018; Biklen, 1995). In fact, after adjusting for inflation, the average teacher salary in the U.S. has decreased by $1,122 in the last decade (National Education Association, 2018). Jaffe (2021) states, “Like the work done in home—paid or unpaid—teachers’ work is considered both necessary and not really work at all” (p. 87). EdTech companies have taken advantage of a profession dominated by women, where labor is already devalued.

Educators are positioned to desire ambassador program spaces due to our precarious position in society as both caregivers and intellectuals (Galman and Mallozzi, 2012; Grumet, 1988). Many may not be able to just walk away. These programs are entangled with our careers, providing access and opportunities that may not be available in our school spaces. Where we desire access, validation, and opportunities, companies desire to turn a profit. This connection could be viewed as mutually beneficial, where each individuals’ needs are met, but the reality is this relationship produces an insatiable reproductive desire where each party is always left wanting more: more recognition; more success; more money.

In this paper, I inquired into the exploitative nature of these programs, “problematiz[ing] what is taken for granted” (Horgan, 2021: 40). These programs give work a new name. Instead of a job it’s a program; a community; an opportunity. Horgan (2021) states, “Work has the appearance of informality; it is bound up with social relations and personal social capital, promising to be indistinct from sociability—offering friendship, or even family—in both good and bad jobs” (p. 54). Our neoliberal–capitalist society has worked hard to metamorphosize work into something fun and mutually beneficial. At the end of the day, we are the ones whose labor hasn’t produced a paycheck. We spend time creating, speaking, and sharing. Time spent both in and outside of our paid job. In the last 10 years, Nearpod has earned $26.3 million in revenue (Nearpod, n.d.), all the while teachers have experienced lower wages and higher expectations (National Education Association, 2018; Thompson & Jones, 2021). These programs may make us feel good, but at what price? We will never truly win. While we can’t untangle ourselves from the neoliberal–capitalist system, we can interrogate exploitative institutions like teacher ambassador programs and their impacts on school spaces. We can decide to alter our relationship with companies that will never prioritize our interest or the interest of our students as capitalist, for-profit institutions.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Kali Thompson

Notes

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