How to Solve the Education Crisis

I have observed the education crisis for my entire life, from within a family of educators - both of my parents were professors - one a chemistry professor and the other a semantics professor.

Without getting into the "whys and hows" of how we got here - I would like to submit a solution to the education crisis that I believe would provide a solid foundation upon which to build the future of education throughout the world.

First and most fundamentally, we must utilize the technological advantages that provide economies and efficiencies of scale to communicate globally as if it were locally. The same technologies that enable the viral growth of "social media" can power the educational solution.

Second, we must recognize the single most important ingredient in the successful "education recipe" is the TEACHER. And by TEACHER, I mean those teachers whom I will call "Super Teachers" for lack of any better terminology.

You know who these teachers are - if you were lucky enough to have one or two in your entire education. Their names and faces instantly come to mind when we think back on our education because these were the teachers that lit us up inside. They sparked our inner-selves and made us realize the real tangible value of education and the true value it would mean in our lives. These teachers showed us that it was up to us to do - and there wasn't anything we couldn't do, if we just set our minds to it. Remember?

Yes, there are the Super Teachers we see in the movies - Jaimie Escalante (Stand and Deliver, staring Edward James Olmos), Roberta Guaspari (Music of the Heart, staring Meryl Streep), and Pierre Dulaine (Take the Lead, staring Antonio Banderas) to name a few, but there are so many more in every city and state, working their motivational magic everyday, and changing the lives of children everywhere.

But when we see what happens to these Super Teachers in real life, it makes you wonder about our priorities. For a sample of the reality, Google: "what happened to jaime escalante" (without the quotes).

Wikipedia
The Rise and Fall of Jaime Escalante
What teachers have to say.

Suffice it to say, it appears that such Super Teachers are not rewarded, which is the root of the dilemma facing anyone that believes we must change our educational system.