Who's the best public advocate or role model for educators?

Credit: Corbis

For our readers, this question tapped into the two polarities that can result from working in education: passion and frustration. For many educators, the strong desire to teach is matched only by their feelings of isolation and beleaguerment.

One reader, speaking for others who feel similarly lonely, responded, "Honestly, we really don't have an advocate here. I'm sure it should be the state department, but it is not." Another wrote bluntly, "It's not the government."

Happily, though, passion mostly won out over frustration. For every discouraged educator who wrote, "I haven't found a role model yet," there were many more who named a torchbearer, a rabble-rouser, or just an inspirational teacher. Filling the list was a diverse array of politicians, education organizations, authors, celebrities (is there anything Oprah doesn't do?), and a few bloggers.

Readers' choices ranged from the serious, such as Jonathan Kozol and Alfie Kohn, to the lighter hearted, such as Bill Nye the Science Guy and Dr. Seuss. And some readers' top choices were quite personal. One reader picked as a role model "the teacher who inspired me, Mr. Ware, my seventh-grade geography teacher." And as for advocate, the respondent wrote, "Myself."

Another reader had this to say on the subject: "I can't choose just one."

What do you think? Weigh in on the results.