A Blueprint for RESPECT

"Cynicism is a self-fulfilling prophesy. You have no chance if you assume you have no chance." 

– Robert Reich

It should go without saying that the primary objective of any educational system is to put students first. That’s a given. It should also go without saying that the way to put students first is to provide them with good teachers. Good teaching is an essential element to helping students get a good education. Whether students are educated in public, private, charter, or home schools, if they have good teachers, they will learn. If not, the quality of their education is a crapshoot.

Taking this one step further, I’d like to point out that students are not served well by demoralized teachers.

Teaching is far more difficult than the average person outside the classroom often understands. On a routine basis teachers are forced to endure pointless meetings, unnecessary administrative paperwork, piles of student papers to grade, overcrowded classrooms, underfunded mandates, unmotivated and unruly students, prescribed curriculum programs that don't work, and, of course, standardized testing followed by even more standardized testing.

The list goes on … and on.

How teachers find the time to teach or even prepare to teach, I don’t know. Sometimes all they can do is try to survive the day at school.

Then, when they leave school and go home, they are hit with an onslaught of news reports about failing schools and the need to “reform” education, which often means little more than giving teachers additional work that is too often designed to satisfy administrators and politicians rather than serve the needs of students.

This all-too-common process of demoralizing teachers and cutting the heart out of the teaching profession has created a crisis in our public schools. The culture must change, and I believe it can.

I invite the readers of this blog to take a look at an article published two days ago by Phi Delta Kappa International titled “Finland’s Secret Sauce: It’s Teachers.” Anyone following current developments in education knows that Finland’s educational system has become a model for the rest of the world. Part of what makes Finland's system such a success can be seen in the following paragraph from the Phi Delta Kappa International article:

For all their effort, Finnish teachers are not highly paid. But they are highly respected and treated far more like professionals than American teachers. Finnish teachers are on their feet in front of students for fewer hours every week, teaching only three to four hours per day. The rest of their work time is spent in preparation, working with colleagues, marking papers, and doing other duties assigned by their heads. Unless they have to teach a class, they are not required to be at the school.

That paragraph describes a system that does not demoralize teachers. Instead, it describes a system that gives teachers time to teach and polish their craft, a system that treats teachers as professionals.

Can the American system do better at supporting its teachers and liberating them to serve their students better? I believe so.

I see signs that teachers are taking the lead in demanding change, and I make a point of tweeting information about those changes whenever I can. (www.twitter.com/nmjim)

I also harbor some hope that the U.S. Department of Education has taken a big step toward doing more to support teachers. Last month, the Education Department released its “Blueprint for RESPECT.” RESPECT is an acronym for  Recognizing Educational Success, Professional Excellence, and Collaborative Teaching. The blueprint calls for “salaries to be competitive with professions like architecture, medicine and law, more support for novice teachers, and more career opportunities for veterans.”

Bravo! The blueprint is a refreshing change from all the recent discussions about “accountability,” “school choice,” and “annual yearly progress” that really do nothing more than dishearten teachers by implying they are not doing their jobs.

I have read the “Blueprint for RESPECT” and find that much of it sounds like a bureaucratic wish list. But that doesn’t matter. It’s heart is in the right place. The Education Department has said teachers deserve respect and has called for substantial pay increases, as well as professional opportunities for advancement. The Education Department has also addressed the issue of improving working conditions for teachers and granting teachers more autonomy. Those are all worthwhile objectives.

At the very least, the Education Department has committed itself to promoting the “Blueprint for RESPECT” and trying to sell it publicly. Maybe we should view that as the first step toward transforming a culture that demoralizes teachers into a culture that gives teachers a little hope.

The “Blueprint for RESPECT” can be downloaded through this link.



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I want to offer my sincerest thanks to Pamela Cort for introducing me to the “Blueprint for RESPECT.” Pamela, a French teacher at a local high school, has recently been recognized as the 2013 New Mexico Teacher of the Year. I met Pamela for the first time this week and found her to be an inspiration for who she is as a teacher and a person. Her commitment to what she does in the classroom and her love for students show the teaching profession at its very best. Meeting Pamela confirmed what I had heard through the grapevine that her recognition as Teacher of the Year was “well deserved and long overdue.” Thank you, Pamela, for all you are doing to promote our noble profession.

Humanities and the Empathic Civilization

I recently attended a presentation at Rice University in which high school students were introduced to research being done at Rice on nanotechnology. During the presentation, a professor identified what he thought were the top ten problems facing humanity in the next fifty years: energy, water, food, environment, poverty, terrorism/war, disease, education, democracy, and population.

The professor explained that the solutions to most of those problems could be traced directly to finding a solution to our energy problems. The high schools students were then told that many of the solutions to the energy problems came from nanotechnology. As the professor told the students in his audience, “Be a scientist and save the world.”

I have spent my professional life in the humanities. Music, art, and history are my forte, and I don’t know enough about science to say too much about what I heard during the presentation on nanotechnology. I do know, however, that I liked the tone of the presentation. I liked hearing the professor encouraging young people to study science so that they could make a difference. I see no harm in spreading a little idealism and asking young people to do something to “save the world.”

I also hope those who become scientists never forget the importance of music, art, literature, and history. The humanities, in my opinion, add a little empathy to the experience of learning science, and I am not alone in this belief. The desire to merge empathy and science certainly has its proponents.

One of those proponents is Jeremy Rifkin, who is heard speaking about "The Empathic Civilization” in the video I have embedded below. Rifkin is president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and has written numerous books about the profound changes that come from advances in science and technology.

In talking about empathy, Rifkin states, “[Our brains] are soft-wired to experience another’s plight as if we our experiencing it ourselves.”

That statement explains much about what teachers in the humanities try to teach to their student every day in the classroom. The challenge of teaching students to appreciate great art, music, and literature may be little more than trying to help students learn to see the world through the eyes of another person — the artist. In other words, the humanities teach empathy.

The study of history is a vital part of that process. In studying history students learn to avoid “presentism.” That is, students learn to study the past by divorcing themselves from the world in which they live. History helps students get inside the minds of people who lived long ago in a world quite different from their own. When students learn to avoid presentism they also learn to understand people today who are different from themselves, people living on the other side of town or the other side of the world. In other words, the humanities help promote Rifkin’s “empathic civilization.”

Just another good reason to teach the humanities and teach them well.

"For kids of a certain age, home is everything, the center of the world. But over the rainbow, dimly guessed at, is the wide earth, fascinating and terrifying. There is a deep fundamental fear that events might conspire to transport the child from the safety of home and strand him far away in a strange land. And what would he hope to find there? Why, new friends, to advise and protect him. … [The Wizard of Oz touches] on the key lesson of childhood, which is that someday the child will not be a child, that home will no longer exist, that adults will be no help because now the child is an adult and must face the challenges of life alone. But that you can ask friends to help you. And that even the Wizard of Oz is only human, and has problems of his own." – Roger Ebert, writing about The Wizard of Oz

 

Using History to Teach Music and Art

“It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough — it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.”

– Steve Jobs, introducing the iPad2 in 2011

Essays promoting the arts in education are as common as the sun coming up. Nevertheless, I'd like to use this posting to say something on the issue. I won’t be rehashing all the good reasons we should increase funding for the arts in our schools. I just want to add one detail to the conversation. Nothing profound, mind you, but I do think I have a point worth making.

Discussions about art education often seem to focus on students participating in the arts. I have no qualms about that. As much as anyone, I would like to expand opportunities for students to join performance groups or become creators of visual art.

 “Arts education in music, theater, dance, and the visual arts is one of the most creative ways we have to find the gold that is buried just beneath the surface. [Children] have an enthusiasm for life, a spark of creativity, and vivid imaginations that need training – training that prepares them to become confident young men and women.”
– Richard W. Riley, former Secretary of Education

Students, however, need more than just an opportunity to participate in the arts. They also need to understand how to become consumers of great art. Great art feeds the soul and lifts the spirit, and we should not forget that artists need an audience. If no one "consumes" art, the artist risks becoming irrelevant.

We don't necessarily need every student to be a creator of art. A student does not need to sit in an orchestra performing one of Beethoven’s symphonies to gain an appreciation for great music. Every student should, however, be given an opportunity to learn about Beethoven and listen to his glorious music.

As an education consultant, I attend numerous conferences for history teachers. These conferences routinely offer presentations on how teachers can use music and art to teach history, which means that many history teachers are already incorporating the arts into their curriculum

I would simply like to reframe the way history teachers think about music and art. Rather than using music and art to teach history, I would like to propose using history to teach music and art. I believe there’s a difference.

I spent thirty years teaching U.S. history to high school students. The traditional curriculum that I taught required me to spend much time presenting lessons on politics, economics, and war, subjects that too often revealed human beings at their worst.

In covering just five decades (1917-1967) of the twentieth century, for example, I would take my students through the death and destruction of World War I, corruption, gangsterism, and materialism in the 1920s, economic depression and the rise of fascism in the 1930s, genocide in the 1940s, fear of nuclear annihilation in the 1950s, and the Vietnam War in the 1960s. This can be depressing stuff for students (and teachers).

Several years ago a new curriculum at my school allowed me to teach a humanities class for the first time. The humanities curriculum provided students with a survey of great music and art from the western world. The class included relatively little about politics, economics, and war, unless those topics were relevant to understanding masterworks of music and art. Instead of teaching about depression and world war, I spent time with students discussing Michelangelo, Mozart, Brahms, Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, and Stravinsky.

What I learned teaching humanities was an eye opener for me. Before I taught the class I had worried that high school students would have little or no use for Bach and Rembrandt. Instead, I discovered that students loved learning about music and art. I generally had no trouble keeping students engaged. The masterworks of the past grabbed their attention unlike anything I had taught in other history classes.

I was also teaching something that seemed to bring a little joy and inspiration into my student’s lives. No wars, depressions, famine, or genocide to bring them down. Music and art showed human beings at their best. Music and art seemed to humanize my students in a way that stories about politics, economics, and war never would.

A study of the past that emphasizes politics, economics, and war can sometimes make students a little cynical. Music and art, on the other hand, is more likely to inspire students and give them a few nice moments that help them make it through the day. After all, who could ever listen to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and not be inspired by the strength of the human spirit?

Teaching my humanities classes also taught me that students with no background in music or art can enjoy learning those subjects. Students simply need someone to guide them through the process of “consuming” great art. Once they understand what they are listening to or looking at, they generally enjoy it and want to know more.

Whether I was teaching about the cave paintings in Lascaux, France, or the revolutionary sound of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, I rarely found it difficult to capture my students attention with great works of art. For me, music and art were easy to sell to high school students.

Which brings me to the main point I want to make in this blog.

When we talk about promoting music and art in our schools, we should not limit ourselves only to giving students opportunities to participate in the arts. We should also try to promote the arts by incorporating them into academic classes, especially history classes. Just as English teachers can promote the appreciation of great literature without requiring students to become creative writers, history teachers can develop an appreciation for great works of music and visual art without requiring students to become musicians and artists.

History teachers can enhance their lessons on the Age of Napoleon with lessons on the Age of Beethoven. They can enhance their lessons on American corruption, gangsterism, and materialism in the 1920s with the inspiring jazz of Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong.

All told, this would be a history worth studying.

“Aeschylus and Plato are remembered today long after the triumphs of Imperial Athens are gone. Dante outlived the ambitions of thirteenth century Florence. Goethe stands serenely above the politics of Germany, and I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over cities, we too will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.” – John F. Kennedy

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As a supplement to this blog, I invite you to read two of my previous postings:

Miracles in Teaching

Defining "Great" Music

David McCullough's Five Lessons from History

What American history buff does not know about David McCullough? He has hosted American Experience on PBS and narrated numerous PBS documentaries. Every time he writes a new book it hits the bestseller list. He has won the Pulitzer Prize (twice), the National Book Award, and has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His presence as a historian is ubiquitous.

In September 2011 McCullough attended the National Book Festival and was asked this question: “What are five lessons from history that our students need to know before they graduate from high school?”

I am using this blog to summarize his answer in a way that I hope can be useful to history teachers. My summary is then followed by the embedded video of McCullough answering the question. For all history teachers, his answer should be good food for thought.

David McCullough’s Five Lessons from History (with a Coda)

1. What matters in history is knowing what happened and why, not memorizing dates and quotes.
2. American history did not begin with the Declaration of Independence. Americans had hundreds of years of history before the Declaration. Students should, in particular, examine the history of Native Americans.
3. Students should learn history through means other than books and teachers. Music, plays, art, and architecture can teach students much about history.
4. Students should learn history through the “lab” technique. History should be a “hands on” experience, in which students reach conclusions on their own. When students figure it out for themselves, they will never forget it.
5. Students should have an opportunity to work with original documents and travel to the places where history happened. Students should be given an opportunity to experience a connection with people from the past. 
6. Coda: Attitudes about history are “caught not taught.” If a teacher is excited about the subject, students are more likely to be excited.

David McCullough, National Book Festival, September 25, 2011

Skipper Hall at SMU, Part 2

Today's posting is the second and final part of an article telling the story of a legendary Methodist minister Bryan “Skipper” Hall. The article focuses on the time Skipper Hall attended Southern Methodist University in the 1920s. I advise everyone to read Part 1 of the article (http://www.writersmith.com/2013/04/skipper-hall-at-smu-part-1.html) before continuing with today’s posting.

Bryan and Gladys Hall, 1926

After Bryan left SMU in 1926 and tried to obtain an appointment as a Methodist minister in New Mexico, he faced opposition due to the protests he had participated in as a student. Fundamentalists in New Mexico suspected the protests at SMU were evidence of his modernism, and they did not want him working as the pastor of a church. In front of a committee organized to determine whether he should be accepted into the ministry, he confronted the questions that had bedeviled him and his professors at SMU. Did he believe in the doctrine of original sin? Did he believe in the virgin birth of Jesus? Did he believe in the immortality of the flesh? Did he believe in the preexistence of Jesus?

Fortunately for Bryan, he was spared from answering every question by a committee chair named C.S. Walker, a man who was well-versed in religious philosophy and sympathetic to Bryan’s situation. Mr. Walker cut Bryan’s answers short before he had time to elaborate on his modernist viewpoints, saving his reputation with the fundamentalists.

If Bryan had answered the questions, he would have told the committee about the ideas he had developed from his studies and debates with other students at SMU. On the issue of original sin, he would have explained that his position was halfway between the theology of Augustine and Pelagius. ( As he explained it to me, “Augustine was a man who believed in original sin. Pelagius was a heretic who got expelled from the church.”) On the issue of the virgin birth, he would have said that the Bible traces Jesus’ lineage back to Joseph. Bryan believed there was no point in tracing the lineage to Joseph if he had not parented the child. He also believed the virgin birth made no rational sense. On the question of immortality Bryan would have told the committee that his ideas did not involve the restoration of the physical body or the resuscitation of the flesh. In regard to the preexistence of Jesus, he would have explained that he did not believe Jesus existed until he was born or “wherever you want to draw the line in the womb.”

Bryan had dealt with the scholarship surrounding these issues when he was a student at SMU. He had also learned as a student about the controversies that would await him after he left school. One of his friends from SMU had tried to join the Northwest Texas Conference of the Methodist Church, only to be turned down for an appointment as a pastor when he said he didn’t believe in the virgin birth. Bryan said that after his friend heard he had been turned down, he cried like a baby. His friend said, “I feel the call of God, and [they] won’t let me join the Conference.”

The modernist-fundamentalist controversy touched Bryan directly when Paul Kern, the Dean of the School of Theology and later a Methodist bishop, called Bryan and six other students into his office. According to Bryan, Dr. Kern said, “Now, you boys are sincere and you want to answer things honestly. If you go to [a committee] meeting and they ask you if you believe in the virgin birth and you say no, the newspapers are going to play it up and you’ll hurt Southern Methodist University. So I suggest that you not appear before the committee.”

Bryan said that he was the only one of the seven students called into Dr. Kern’s office who stayed with the Church as a minister. Providing great insight into Bryan’s reasons for joining the ministry, he explained, “I stayed with the church believing my experience with God was just as good as any one else’s. No one had the right to tell me my experience with God was wrong.”

Once, while passionately debating an issue of philosophy with an SMU professor in class, a student sitting across from Bryan said, “Why don’t you shut up? Go make ‘em cry and get your money.” Bryan Hall could never have been that type of pastor. he had learned too much from his professors at SMU to view his obligation to the ministry so cynically.

Bryan "Skipper" Hall (1896-1989)

The interest in religious scholarship that Bryan gained from SMU stayed with him throughout his life. When I interviewed him in 1980, he explained his religious philosophy with references to religious thinkers such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, James Breasted, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Paul Tillich, and Leslie Weatherhead. He easily quoted passages from the Bible taken from different translations. He was also well-versed in the Biblical apocrypha, as well as the philosophy of John Wesley, one of the founders of the Methodist Church. Bryan may not have studied all this at SMU and, like all college graduates, he still had much to learn after he left school. However, what he did learn at SMU provided him with an unquenchable desire to continue studying religious and historical scholarship. No school could hope for more than to inspire its students to a lifelong passion for learning. In that sense and many others, SMU served Bryan Hall well.

Bryan went to SMU with the dream of someday preaching in a town that contained a university. He thought he could make religion understandable to a congregation of well-educated people. Although he served numerous communities in New Mexico throughout his long and distinguished career in the Methodist Church, he never got the chance to preach in a university town. Nevertheless, he served the small-town congregations of New Mexico with the dedication and commitment that improved the lives of everyone who met him, and he won the hearts of many.

I believe the following quote from Bryan Hall provides great insight into the intellectual life sparked by his experiences at SMU:

John Wesley believed that we grow toward perfection even as our Heavenly Father is perfect…. I interpret that to mean that we forever move toward a richer maturity. We never reach the place where we are satisfied. I am continually growing, and I never reach the place where I say I am saved. Methodists do not believe that once a person has had an experience of salvation, that person is then saved. We believe that a person must continue to grow and develop as long as they live. There are some who grow senile and quit developing in the last years of their existence. However, the idea that we inherited from John Wesley is that we must continue to mature spiritually.

Bryan Hall spoke these words to me in March 1980 when he was eighty-three years old. At the time, his mind was still sharp, and he was still reading works of religious scholarship and philosophy. When I interviewed him, he referred to the works of John Locke and George Hegel, which he had recently read. As he told me, “I have spent my entire life learning and searching.”

Bryan Hall lived nine years after I put his story on tape. More than any person I have met, he exemplified the ideal of a person committed to a life of learning, a person who is open to new ideas and prepared to abandoned the outdated ideas of the past. He was a “modernist” in the truest sent of the word, a lifelong learner who used his knowledge to make our world better. His life was a testament to the historic mission of Southern Methodist University.

For more information about Skipper Hall go to www.whyteachhistory.com/publications/skipperhall

You can support this blog by using the link below to purchase Skipper Hall from Amazon (available in print and Kindle editions).