Exceptional teachers can kindle interest in math, science

Dr. Beverley J. Pitts
This opinion piece appeared in the February edition of  Indiana Business.

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

This observation by the poet William Butler Yeats has never been more relevant to us here in Indiana. As educators and business and community leaders struggle to find ways to reverse unacceptable dropout rates and produce well-prepared high school graduates, it is clear that we need new ways of teaching and new school structures that will provide the necessary spark for our students’ imaginations.

We are able, certainly, to provide young people with compelling evidence for the importance of earning a college education. Job preparedness is a crucial one, and a college education becomes even more important as new technologies, downsizing, and outsourcing change the occupational landscape. That is because college graduates who have endured the rigors of academe are more adaptable and less dependent on training for a particular job. Not incidentally, college graduates also enjoy a substantial earnings advantage over the course of a lifetime.

Studies show, too, a range of other benefits beyond that of increased income, including significant health advantages and other quality-of-life indicators such as higher savings and more leisure activities. A well-prepared, college-educated work force, of course, also is crucial to Indiana’s ability to compete economically with other states and other countries.

But we must do much more than lecture to our children about the importance of higher education. We must strike that spark of imagination and enthusiasm for new perspectives and new ideas that education should nurture. As the documentary film Two Million Minutes illustrates, we must put a higher priority on math and science education in high school, and we must prepare our students in a way that is relevant to the changes in the social and technological landscape they face today. The key to all of this is, of course, excellent teachers, and this nation is particularly in need of them in the STEM areas: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

Talented high school math and science teachers are in especially short supply in urban and rural areas, which is why I am excited about a new program initiated in Indiana by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. The University of Indianapolis, Purdue University, Ball State University, and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis are taking the lead in this unprecedented national program designed to steer talented college graduates from STEM fields into long-term careers as math and science teachers, while also focusing schools of teacher education on an outcomes-based, clinical approach. Lilly Endowment Inc. has pledged more than $10 million toward the effort.

Fellows will complete a year-long master’s degree program that features intensive classroom experiences and mentoring right from the start. In turn, they agree to teach math or science for at least three years in high-need Indiana schools. The program will produce 80 new math and science teachers each year, and could expand to more Indiana colleges to generate up to 400 new teachers per year. Apart from the competitive boost it will provide to the state, I have high hopes that this cadre of well-trained and highly supported teachers will be just the spark we need to relight the fire that has been all but extinguished in too many of our young people.