March 1 - Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools

Back to web versionPosted on Tue, Mar. 10, 2009America has a long way to go to overcome anti-intellectualismWednesday, Mar 11, 2Eric Hanushek of the Hoover Institution wrote (1/19, Opinion), “Nobody doubts the need to improve our schools.” He rightly notesthe modest performance of American students compared with those in many other countries and advises, “We cannot continuedoing what has not worked, even if we do it more intensively.”Hanushek is correct on all counts, and so is his observation that our schools and teachers need rewards for academic success.But they need much more.To measure up to our high-achieving friends in the global economy, we need to enhance the power and prestige of teachers tothe point where teaching is one of the most desirable careers, as it is elsewhere. We need to make teaching so attractive that wedraw new teachers largely from the top ranks of college graduates, as happens elsewhere. We need to identify bright potentialteachers at an early age, and nurture their ambitions and their skills. We need to end the waste of resources caused by half of ournew teachers’ leaving the profession within their first five years. We need to make the words “I used to be a teacher” as rare as “Iused to be a physician” or “I used to be an architect.”As a principal, I made it a practice to sit down with our school’s top 10 graduates each spring to get their views of their schoolexperiences and to chat about their plans. From the 1970s through the 1980s, at least one and often two or three wereconsidering teaching careers. In the ’90s, that dwindled to one or none. After two years of none, I brought this up with the top 10.One bright, supremely able young woman jumped at it, saying, “I’d love to be a teacher, but my dad won’t let me. He says it’s notworth my time or his money.”Her dad was no ogre, but a solid citizen who supported the schools and just wanted the best for his child. For our schools toimprove significantly, teaching must be seen as one of the best careers for anyone’s child, as it often is elsewhere.All this will not be enough, however. There are many good teachers today whose effect is blunted by a culture that devalues theirefforts and intellect generally. America has a long tradition of anti-intellectualism, well documented by observers foreign anddomestic. We like to think we prefer the practical over the theoretical and the intuitive over the analytical. Sometimes, we like tojust not think much at all. This has been especially evident in recent years with a sizeable minority of Americans rejecting thefindings of the worldwide scientific community in fields as diverse as climatology and evolutionary biology. Only in America.Our schools and our students will thrive most when all of us respect the scientists, historians, mathematicians, poets and othercustodians of the world’s knowledge, consistently show that respect to our children, and take pleasure in mastering as much ofthat knowledge as we can. That is the foundation — and requirement — of what has been called a learning society.The corporate sector and the media need to help with this, as well. In his thought-provoking book The World Is Flat, ThomasFriedman remarks that when Bill Gates visits China, his talks are packed with adoring high school students eager to learn. Toyoung Chinese, Gates is a rock star; to young Americans, he isn’t. Creating a learning society here will take some seriousmarketing.Jim Haas is director of the master of arts in teaching program at Webster University-Kansas City. He lives in Olathe.© 2009 Kansas City Star and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.kansascity.com