Is It Time to Stop "Certifying" Teachers?

According to the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the United States spends more on education than any other nation except Switzerland.   Although the misinformed keep assuring us that all our educational ills can be fixed if we only throw more money into education, we now know that such a statement simply isn't true.  It is time for those who truly care about education to teach others that money is not the solution.  Perhaps it is even part of the problem...

Perhaps it is time to take a hard look at teacher education.  A profession that refers to a certified person as being "certificated" may already show that we have a problem.  Instead of forcing teachers to spend years on educational methodology courses, perhaps we should insist instead on teachers developing greater command of their subject(s).  While we're at it, perhaps we should also re-examine the god-like emphasis we place on using "technology" in the classroom.  Technology should be a tool and nothing more, but not an end in itself.  A good teacher should be able to use whatever tools he or she deems appropriate.

It is a tragedy and an utter disgrace to contemplate the fact that geniuses such as Beethoven, Mozart, Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci and Einstein, to name only a tiny few, would not have been allowed to teach in an American public school, simply because they would not be "certificated".  Every American should be ashamed of this.

Ignorance is a threat to our very survival as a nation and a people.

A Noble Idea

A close friend of mine has tired of the empty celebrations that surround the July 4 holiday in the United States.  He feels it would be better if we observed the nation's birthday by studying the democratic ideals that shaped the country and the people who originated them.  Perhaps then we might have better reasoned political debates than the current debacles we face. 

Given the fact that history is woefully given short shrift in too many American schools, his idea may be a sound one.  It is time we realized that learning is too important to entrust solely to our schools.  When we consider such nonsense as a North Carolina state "educator" and curriculum designer seriously suggesting that the NC high school American history curriculum should include only events dating from 1877, we realize how important it is for each of us to learn and teach.  Students in North Carolina--and everywhere--deserve better.  To accept such a responsibility is empowering...and humbling.  It could even be fun to devise clever and entertaining methods of bringing history to life:  plays, readers theatre, contests, music, etc. 

It is important to remember that the founding fathers did call for public celebrations, including bonfires and other commemorations, so we certainly shouldn't rob July 4 of its joyful and communal atmosphere.  But surely we can find a better way to glorify our history than simply setting off firecrackers.

A Thought about Baltimore

As the events in Ferguson and Baltimore--and now Charleston--have unfolded over the past two summers, one recollection keeps returning to me.  Ironically, it was in Baltimore that the great African-American writer and orator Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) finally encountered a measure of kindness from white people.  In the midst of all the vicious cruelties Douglass recounts in his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, he notes with gratitude that it was in Baltimore that he first learned to read and write.  Initially, his mistress there, Sophia Auld, taught him the rudiments of the alphabet and simple words, but her kind intentions were halted by her husband, who understood that the ability to read and write would empower a slave far more than any weapon.  Gradually, Mrs. Auld became as callous and cruel as other slave owners.  Douglass says of her, "Slavery proved as injurious to her as it did to me."   Her soul was destroyed in the process of being a slave owner. 

Providentially, Douglass was able to secure other sources of learning.  The local white children, many of whom were poor and deprived themselves, were happy to share with Douglass the limited knowledge which they had accrued.  In Baltimore, Douglass had been given more food to eat than when he subsisted on meager rations on the plantation.  He writes that bread was plentiful in the Auld household in the city, and Douglass gratefully shared bread with the white children who helped him learn to read. 

How sad that nearly 200 years ago there was at least a brief moment of kindness and cooperation between the two races, yet today strife has lingered.  If it happened once; surely it can happen again...and again.