For about 4 years now I have been working closely with folks (RISC) discussing and thinking about school reform. This topic has been in and out of the news, it seems like, forever.

But as a classroom teacher, what I saw was that it was not the system so much as it was the teacher. It was that the teachers lacked a passion for teaching, and if teachers could not model learning for learning sake, the students often followed the model, with the occiasional student escaping the duldrum grips of this type of classroom. Though one could argue here, that it is the system hiring the teacher. But I would argue the point of the teacher becoming a teacher. 

It was rather obvious that when I lit up with learning, so did my students. Or vice versa. If my students became excited about learning or some new arena of life they had discovered, I too would share the interest. This was my job as a teacher. To consider all things my students could be interested in and to bring to them new possible interests. (Which is the reason we created Kigluait, we wanted to model for teachers this possibliity.)

Thus when I read Ewan McIntosh's Edublog, I realized I needed to speak on this topic as I had not yet.  Ewan shares in his blog about the release of Ken Robinson's "The Element". He than goes on to share a bit about the talking points that Robinson speaks about in both his  his famous TED talk and his book. These include the school as the industrialized model. standardized testing, death to entrepeneurship, and what should be changed. All of which is a topic dear to my heart. 

I cannot agree more with the author when he describes our schools modeling the industrail age processing plant. Get them in, get them out. If they cannot cut it, it is not our problem. They must conform. What's more, now we have so much focus on testing and results with NCLB, that we have really lost focus of what matters. The kids and an interest in learning. 

Now, I know you have probably heard this all before, as have I, so what is the solution. It will have to start with the teachers. Which is precisely what Robinson's book is about. We need to work on finding teachers who have a passion to teach AND learn. How often have you seen those teachers that have been in the classroom and did not want to be there? I, myself, have seen this one too many times. Yet, this statment should not be taken lightly. Because when one considers the effects of the person doing the job on the "product", the results are beyond disastrous. In other words, these unpassionate teachers do treat their students as products. Modeling for these youth a disinterest or lack of passion for learning.  What a thing to do to the next generation that will take care of you, your family, and your environment. Why would we do this?At what point did we as a society stop caring? The industrial age?

So how do we find these teachers? Well, I think we ought to take two steps back to take one leap forward.  Just as there was  apprenticeships during the medeival time period (among many others as well as cultures), there should be apprenticeships now. When youth are young, giving them the opportunity to seek out and apprentice at possible careers would be ideal. But even more ideal and important for a career as a teacher, teaching the youth, our "most valued asset." Many careers have interns, or aprenticeships. But rarely do I hear of it in the teaching proffession.

I realize that this issue has so many angles, and one could argue that many certificate programs require such aprenticeships (2-3 months). But what I am really getting at here is the need for not just the educational system to make a change about the importance of our teachers and the ability to passionately love to learn, but the need for our society to change and become more reflective on the importance of our teachers and schools.

Why is it always the last topic discussed in political debates? Why do we always hear about the need for change in the educational system, but it does not look to be changing any time soon? Why do we allow our universities and schools to continue to produce drones with a lack of need to find their passion. It is what I used to describe to my students as the "flatliners." The kids that did not seem to care, because at some point they lost focus of their search for their passion. I would tell my students, just as I would tell all of you, wake up and help wake those others up! Do not be another flatliner. Figure out what your passion is. I have. Teaching. 

I think this is best summed up in John Taylor's Teacher of the Year Speech from 1990.