The New York Times Magazine: For Teachers, The Classroom Has Become a Battleground

The New York Times Magazine: The Education Issue View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Friday, September 7, 2018 [NYTimes.com »]( [From the Magazine: The Education Issue]( By THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Dear Reader, I hope you’ve had a good week. I spent mine getting my kids ready for school (third and sixth grades), and meeting their new teachers. I’ve been thinking about teachers a lot lately. They’re the subject of this year’s education issue, which hits the stands this weekend. Typically, this issue explores how education affects Americans across the nation (last year, staff writer Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote about [school resegregation in Alabama](. This year, we wanted to take a look at the pressure that teachers today are facing from all angles — whether it’s standardized test scores, underfunding or dealing with the horrors of school shootings. In Arizona, teachers are [leading a movement]( called “Save Our Schools Arizona” to fight budget cuts to the state’s education funding, Dale Russakoff writes. Sara Mosle follows career educator Cynthia Gunner, who works tirelessly to improve [teacher effectiveness]( in Atlanta’s public schools in the face of systemic challenges like standardized test scores. School shootings have had an outsize effect on our collective psyche, and Jeneen Interlandi considers the suffering of teachers, who are at the quiet center of a recurring national horror as victims, ad hoc emergency workers and anonymous public servants accustomed to placing their students needs above their own. And, at a time when hotly debated concepts of safe spaces and trigger warnings are now reaching high schools, Jonathan Mahler looks at how [teachers are increasingly caught between]( administrators trying to balance institutional values and the involvement of high-paying parents who want to protect their children. Finally, a photo-essay by Brian Ulrich, with text from Jaime Lowe, shows teachers [working the gig economy]( outside the classroom as baristas, warehouse employees and cooks just to make ends meet. With our cover taking [visual inspiration from old protest posters]( we hope readers come away with a deep understanding of just how hard a task teaching has become. A special thanks to Jessica Lustig and Ilena Silverman for steering the ship with this issue. There’s a lot more to read, some of which I’ve highlighted below. Onward, Jake Silverstein Editor in Chief [I Was Sexually Assaulted by Another Marine. The Corps Didn’t Believe Me.]( In 2006, Justin Rose was sexually assaulted by another Marine. He and three other Marines from his unit testified against their assailant in front of a military judge, but their testimony was not conclusive enough for a conviction, according to the judge. It was easier to believe that they were liars than accept the truth. At that time, male-on-male sexual assault was not something that society was ready to talk about or think about, especially in a subculture as driven by the norms of heterosexual masculinity as the Marine Corps is. Rose writes, ‘‘In the years since then, I came to realize that it wasn’t the assault that had the most enduring effect on me. It was people’s refusal to believe that one man would assault another man." [Recommended: Recently Returned Books]( Art books and manga and knitting manuals next to self-help and philosophy and thrillers, the very popular mixed up with the very obscure. Sound like an odd mix? That’s because this week’s Letter of Recommendation by Elisa Gabbert is about recently returned books at the library, which can be an escape from hype, a kind of anti-curation. Looking at them is the readerly equivalent of gazing into the fridge, hungry but not sure what you’re hungry for. [Elevated Chocolate-Chip Cookies]( Do you like cookies? Do you like them with cranberries and flakes of salt? What if they had little chunks of finely melted chocolate in them? If your answer is yes to these questions, then you should spend the weekend making Dorie Greenspan’s rye-cranberry chocolate-chunk cookies. Inspired by the ones she had at Mokonuts, a small restaurant in Paris, they don’t just look good, they’re a meditation on the entire genre of cookies. [Recipe right this way.]( [Fall in Love With Chinese Food]( Lately, all that Sam Sifton wants to eat is the velveted fish at China Xiang on 42nd Street, just off Ninth Avenue. It’s a delicate, supersoft flounder set alongside pillows of tofu, in a glistening wine-dark sauce. ‘‘It’s the kind of dish that makes people want to eat fish,’’ one of his friends said. ‘‘It’s the kind of dish that makes people fall in love with Chinese food.’’ You might even make a habit of it. [Naomi Osaka’s Breakthrough Game]( 20-year-old Naomi Osaka is one of the most intriguing young stars in sports today. Her rise has been accompanied by a curious tension: She is half-Japanese and half-Haitian, representing a country whose obsession with racial purity has shaped her own family’s history. Before she faces Serena Williams in the U.S. Open finals tomorrow, revisit our profile of the athlete who is poised to burst into the top tier of women’s tennis, while also symbolizing something as large as the world’s multicultural future. [‘Strategy’ May Be More Useful to Pawns Than to Kings]( By BEVERLY GAGE We imagine it as a concern of the powerful, hunched over the chessboard of the world. But strategic thinking is critical to broad movements, too. New Sentences [New Sentences: From ‘Convenience Store Woman’]( By SAM ANDERSON Sayaka Murata’s novel offers a fascinating way of thinking about your age. Or, more specifically, your ages. [Rashida Tlaib Plans to Be Part of a New Era in the House]( Interview by AUDIE CORNISH The politician on Detroit’s “comeback,” the millionaires in Congress and humanizing Palestinians to people in the United States. [Can I Tell My Brother the Truth About Our Paternity?]( By KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH The magazine’s Ethicist columnist on how DNA undoes secrecy. If you enjoy our newsletter forward this email to a friend and help the magazine grow. Getting this from a friend? [Sign up to get the magazine newsletter](. Let us know how we can improve at: [newsletters@nytimes.com](mailto:newsletters@nytimes.com?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback%20NYT%20Magazine) Check out our [full list of free newsletters]( including [At War]( A newsletter about the experiences and costs of war with stories from Times reporters and outside voices. 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