CBS 2 School: Waiting for an October Revolution
"Waiting for Superman," a recently released documentary, has sparked a heated debate over how best to reform our failing public schools.
Reformers today are hoping for an October Revolution.
The first occurred back in 1917. The Bolshevik Vladimir Lenin led the October Revolution in Russia. He was born to a mother who was a schoolteacher and a father who served as a bureaucrat in the Education Department of the Russian government. The revolution Lenin led would ultimately evolve into something far worse than what was overthrown. The Bolshevik revolution would collapse years later under the weight of its own bankrupt ideas. The bureaucracy it created was unsustainable.
There is another Lennon, who led an October Revolution, we might want to consider. Beatle front man John Lennon was born seventy years ago this month. His ideas, composed as long lasting music, continue to inspire new generations of young people. The ideas of John Lennon continue to teach us.
Check out the titles to the recently released Best Of CD, Power to the People, a compilation of John Lennon's finest hits as a solo artist: "Power to the People," "Gimme Some Truth," "We All Shine On," "Whatever Gets You Through the Night," "(Just Like) Starting Over," "Mind Games," "Watching the Wheels," and "Imagine."
Sounds like a winning curriculum. Wouldn't we want all of our teachers to teach truth, to empower students, and provide remediation all the while inspiring curiosity? Put me in that classroom.
Many of the ideas found in John Lennon's music might still inspire a generation not unlike it did forty years ago. Teachers as bureaucrats do not sound promising. Teachers serving as the Muse sounds great.
Leonardo da Vinci biographer Stefan Klein has found that the primary difference in the life of this great Renaissance man was a teacher. The teacher's name was Andrea del Verrochio. Klein wrote, "The key element that a teacher communicates to a student is neither experience nor knowledge – it is enthusiasm." Leonardo da Vinci worked for the joy of learning.
He had found his Muse.
Learning is an art not a science. Teachers as bureaucrats will not accurately address today's educational problems. We need to find the right Lennon for our time. We need a Muse in each classroom to inspire our students to do great things.
If we can agree to that . . . we have begun an October Revolution worth remembering.
Imagine that.
