Creating a new generation of talented, professional teachers begins when today’s teachers and counselors say to the most academically advanced children in each classroom and school, “You should be a teacher.” Implanting a positive conception of teaching as a profession and the idea that a bright child should consider being a teacher is like the first dollar in a young person’s retirement plan – it will grow in value and pay dividends in the future. The public image of teachers today is not good and teaching needs an infusion of “intelligent talent” to turn this around.
There is an invisible yet persistent competition every year for the most academically talented children in our schools. What careers and professions will these children pursue? Steering children toward a preferred career begins at an early age. Generations ago, many of these “when I grow up” dreams were stereotyped and gender-fitted. Little boys dreamed or being firemen and police officers, professional athletes, Presidents and super heroes. Little girls dreamed of being nurses, secretaries, homemakers and mothers. Today, there are no reasons for gender-fitting; every career dream is equally open to and appropriate for all boys and girls. Many of yesteryear’s childhood aspirations to be a professional athlete and media star still persist for boys and girls today.
However, after the glitz has faded and reality proves that the ladder of college and professional sports stardom is for the athletically gifted and talented, children begin to consider real career aspirations. That is when the sorting of talent starts anew. Children with intellectual talent gravitate and are guided toward specialties where their intellect is recognized and rewarded. Rewards are not just monetary, but the earning power of a profession does count. Straight “A” children with achievement scores in the top one percent are more likely to hear parents, teachers and counselors coach their future career paths toward areas of specialized work. “She’s headed to an Ivy League school where she should major in pre- (fill in the blank with med, law, or any other course of study leading to a post-graduate degree).” “He is smart like his parents and will follow their footsteps in …” Seldom does the profile sound like, “She is so academically talented. She should use her intellect to teach children to read or understand the beauty of mathematics or the functionality of physics.” Kids with intellectual talents are steered toward “intellectual” pursuits.
The following generalization is just that – a generalization, but it is true most of the time. Most college students who choose majors in education are not in the top 10, 15 or 20 percent of their graduating class. Magna and summa cum laude graduates seldom become teachers. This is not to say that teachers graduating in the second quartile of their class will not make good teachers. It is only to point out that in each successive class of teacher-prepared graduates there is a dearth of the “best and brightest.” So, what does this mean?
First, there is a perspicacity associated with superior intelligence. A greater intellect allows one insights, judgments and depth of understanding that the less intelligent cannot achieve. It is okay to say that intelligence is the horsepower needed for smarter teaching. It really is. Daily teaching is flooded with thousands of opportunities for a teacher to judge a child’s readiness for learning, to judge the appropriateness and correctness of a child’s thought, and to take the next, best teaching action. A highly tuned insight is the difference between a teacher perceiving that the child is just giving an answer and a child who thoroughly understands her response. The insightful teacher will seek clarification while the less insightful teacher, not understanding the difference, will turn the page and go on. The difference that this moment of teaching makes in the development of a child’s education is an irrefutable fork in the road. Consider the plight of a child who can solve a problem involving fractions in elementary school, but does not understand the function of fractions when the child learns algebra. It is a teaching failure like this in causing a child to reach a complete understanding at an appropriate age that makes algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus more than difficult for many children who could otherwise succeed in advanced math. Improved education needs more teachers to make the quick, insightful and intelligent teaching decisions needed to maximize learning for all children.
Second, intelligence can provide an “Occam’s Razor” to create simplicity, clarity, and economy of thought and expression that is elegant when compared with others who stumble to make an explanation of even the most mundane ideas. It is difficult enough for a child to sort through all of the words on a page, all of the words spoken, and each of their classroom experiences to create meaning in what they are taught. Every day children listen to pedestrian explanations of what they are being taught by teachers who use the same examples and illustrations year after year. The teacher’s rote modeling within a lesson may incite some children but will not connect with all children. A child is given a gift by a teacher who has the capacity to simplify explanations into increments that make sense. A teacher who can create clear, multiple examples, five and six and a time, allows every child to say “I see.”
Teachers ask or tell children to use mental processes often without showing them how these processes work. It is a gifted teacher who can model for a student how to compare and contrast data, how to weigh the meaning of ideas, and how to choose just the right words of explanation. It is an intelligent teacher who models and coaches these processes so that children understand when and why to use these thinking strategies not just how to use them. In most classrooms, the average teacher does not have the capacity to simplify, clarify and to build intelligent, incremental thinking in children. It is the difference between teachers who are driven by time and material and teachers who are pushed to create thinking children.
Thirdly, role modeling the challenges and rewards within the teaching profession for bright and talented children is a must if we are to assure future generations of talented teachers. Children learn to identify when their teacher’s explanations are intellectually provocative or lame. They know when their teacher is just repeating the same statements or is able to use other words and examples to create clarity. Children identify when their teacher makes casual and colloquial mistakes in the grammar of her daily speech. Children know when they are exposed to a bright and gifted teacher, because over time they emulate or try to emulate that teacher’s manners and characteristics. Seldom do children purposefully try to model the traits of an average teacher. Role modeling is inherent in teaching and bright and gifted teachers have the opportunity to show bright and gifted children that they have a future in teaching.
Lastly, there is a never-ending curiosity and “need to know” associated with intelligence that is required in a teaching faculty. The presence of the intellectually curious teacher lifts or tilts the status quo for all teachers by asking persistent questions or making provocative comments. The faculty needs teachers who consistently ask “What if?” and “Why not?” In any organization of people, it is easy to settle for the norm; it is comfortable when everyone is in agreement. But, schools today cannot rest on their norms, because yesterday’s norms will not prepare children for their tomorrows.
Understanding the value of these four points and changing the hiring of future teachers may be difficult. As a district administrator, elementary and high school principal for more than three decades, I recommended the employment of scores of teachers. My candidate screening always included data related to collegiate grade point average and class ranking. These data along with observations and insights into the candidate’s academic and pedagogical preparation formed the basis of a recommendation. My priorities in ranking candidates ran toward a candidate’s demonstrated understanding of pedagogy and how good teaching is not exposing children to education but purposefully causing children to learn.
Today, my employment recommendations still would demand solid academic and pedagogical training and clear demonstrations of teaching skills. But, I would pay more attention when a keen and unabated intelligence, a fiery curiosity, a divergent thinking process, and a fervent tenacity presented itself in a candidate. I would not let this teacher slip into the employment of some other school, but would do everything necessary to create a teaching “home” for this teacher. The concept of a teaching home is essential for the brightest of our teachers who can be shunned by threatened colleagues or turned off by rampant mediocrity. A teaching home honors and respects intelligent, professional work; it protects the exceptionally talented teachers. Too often, bright teachers become disenchanted with organizations that discount intelligence. Too many bright teachers leave teaching for different professions that pay better attention to their talented members. In retrospect, I would reconsider all of the time and energy devoted to improving a failing teacher. Today, I would cut the school’s losses with that person and spend more energy in finding, recruiting and sustaining the brightest of teachers.
Children need the power of intelligent teachers. Teachers need the leadership of intelligent colleagues. Teaching needs an infusion of intelligent and talented teachers.