Makers and Innovators

Since this is a blog, I get to just spout my opinion. Right? I’m a little concerned about the mental balance of one of the authors I read. Maybe he’s like some of the rest of us, we’ve been teaching a long time and are accustomed to being rulers of all we survey. We forget to be tactful and try to actually engage others in our conversations. I kept realizing I was missing what he was saying because I was caught up in how he said it!

I enjoyed comparing the makers and the innovators of education. The makers are all business tycoons who, like today’s businessmen, determined what schools should produce. Today we periodically overhaul education based on what the business world needs its labor pool to know. And doesn’t that make sense? While I would LOVE to wield the scepter and create a math curriculum based on what I like to teach, I’m afraid my students would be poorly prepared for the real world.

The innovators are educators who have done their bit to change education and make it, at least to some, more productive or welcoming or socially accepting or... To the naked eye, the innovators are more altruistic than the makers. Unless they compiled their ideas into an inservice presentation and took their dog and pony show on the road, these educational innovators did not directly benefit from the changes they tried to bring about.

All of the innovators I read about had fascinating stories to tell. Having to pick one, I chose Booker T. Washington. (Being honest, BTW won because his was one of the orange-backed biographies I fondly remember reading in Mrs. Armour’s third grade classroom.) Washington’s recognition of the value of a vocational education is as important today as it was 150 years ago. Even more important is his promotion of hard work, persistence, and self-discipline for anyone who wants to advance himself. These are characteristics for which any teacher will give three cheers!