| Everybody knows who Babe Ruth was. Millions | | | | experienced teachers, my co facilitator and I |
| watch the Jerry Rices of our world catch footballs | | | | heard teachers tell stories about how in their |
| and the Lance Armstrongs race through France. | | | | parents' eyes they were "only a teacher." How |
| But how many people can name the winner of an | | | | hurtful! Surely, those parents were reflecting our |
| award won by a teacher in their own community | | | | culture's opinion. All that parental love and care, all |
| – if in fact there is such an award? | | | | that money for college, had been in service of a |
| As a person who taught and administrated in | | | | different expectation. |
| schools for years and then consulted with | | | | We began to focus the workshops on celebrating |
| teachers, I offer a plan for the reform of | | | | the teaching profession, and helping the |
| American education: make teachers into heroes, | | | | participants see themselves as highly skilled |
| put them on a pedestal and celebrate the act of | | | | professionals providing a service without which |
| teaching for what it actually is: the most | | | | everything would collapse: heroes. Some of them |
| fundamental activity in our society. | | | | told us that the workshop is one of the reasons |
| But that's obvious, you might say. Everybody | | | | they stayed in the profession. |
| knows that no one can get anywhere these days | | | | We need to do that on a national scale. For every |
| without a decent education and that the nation's | | | | breathless article about some twenty-year-old's |
| welfare depends on an educated populace. Well | | | | performance in a game the outcome of which |
| then, I ask, where's the glory around teaching? | | | | changes the world not one jot, for every platinum |
| Why aren't teachers being interviewed on TV and | | | | recording of a song that very likely will be |
| radio? Why aren't thousands of young people | | | | forgotten in a year or two, we need a feature on |
| asking themselves, "Do you think I can get to be | | | | a teacher. Let's put TV cameras into the |
| a teacher? Do I have what it takes?" | | | | classrooms where star teachers work, with an |
| The reason that our culture doesn't award hero's | | | | expert commentator the way we do sports and |
| status to teachers isn't that we don't recognize | | | | show what actually happens in a good classroom, |
| the critical nature of what they do; it is that most | | | | the decisions minute by minute, the teacher |
| people think they could be good teachers. That's a | | | | makes. Instead of inviting some famous person |
| fantasy. Most people could not. We haven't come | | | | to speak at the college graduation ceremony, let's |
| to grips with how hard it is to excel in teaching, | | | | invite a local teacher whose work has opened |
| how rare the native talent that is required, how | | | | doors for kids who otherwise would not have had |
| much there is to learn, how innovative one must | | | | a chance, some of whom will be in the audience. |
| be, and how self motivating to improve each year | | | | Give her the honorary degree. (Besides, she'll |
| and not get stale in a job where there is no | | | | probably make a better speech.) Prizes for |
| external change, no ladder to climb from one | | | | teachers, parades for teachers, whatever works |
| position to a new one. When we understand | | | | to surround them with glory. Then we won't have |
| enough to marvel at a well taught class as we | | | | to check up on them, treating them like children |
| marvel at a successful heart surgery, we will see | | | | by endless standardized tests of their students. |
| true reform. We'll focus then on recruiting the | | | | They will proudly hold themselves accountable to |
| best and brightest into teaching and training them | | | | the highest standards. |
| and supporting them, not just with pay, but with | | | | Think about a culture in which pictures of |
| respect. The teachers will do the rest. People who | | | | teachers outnumber those of athletes on the |
| see themselves as heroes perform accordingly. | | | | walls of young peoples' bedrooms and in which |
| But people tend to see themselves as they are | | | | teachers are begged for their autographs. That's |
| seen. Year after year in an annual workshop for | | | | a culture in which good schools will blossom. |