Education is our only salvation

By Simon Owen-Williams
Published: July 27, 2008

Having devoted 40 out of the last 45 years of my life to education — in one capacity or another — I am naturally predisposed to thinking that education is important. In my opinion, there is a vital link between the quality of education a child receives and the economic development that takes place in a community. The relationship between the two is complex and evolving.

There is a strong link between quality education and economic growth — and that’s true the world over.

My first and main claim is that education is too important to be left to professional educators alone.

Next to health, education is the single most important investment that one makes in the life of one’s child. The truth is, it takes the involvement of many key individuals — as well as institutions — to develop the skills that are needed for an individual child to be successful in this world. Schools cannot become islands. Teachers cannot work in isolation.

Businesses must play an instrumental role, too. Why not involve businessmen in our classroom activities? Let’s talk about the real world, by bringing real world thinking to our daily lessons. Let’s partner with each other by sharing ideas and perspectives. Let’s continue to get businesses behind us by asking them directly what they need from us.

As Daniel Pink reminds us in his recent book, “A Whole New Mind,” if we are preparing students only for jobs that someone overseas can do for cheaper, or that a computer can do faster, we ought to ask ourselves if this is good preparation for the workplace. Is this fair to our children? Will there be jobs in the future for students who possess only these limited skills?

Teaching to minimum competencies will limit the role our graduates can play in the real world — when you set the bar too low, it is easy to get walked over. Self respecting communities must set high educational standards.

Naturally, we will also need the active support of parents, not just those willing to show up at sports fields yelling their support, but also taking the next, more important step of working with their teachers in ongoing, mutually supportive academic dialogue. Parents need to feel real access to their child’s growth academically. Parents’ rights do not end at the school gates.

Real partnership emphasizing shared goals will reinforce hope — not desperation — in our youth. We must foster a common understanding of the problems that lie ahead. This will be critical as we rebuild economically.

When businesses, parents and teachers and other important institutions act together, powerful things happen.

We will not only create a powerful stock of human capital desirable to business, but we will also help shape human beings that are capable of standing on their own two feet — confident and prepared. Much good work is already taking place along these lines thanks to organizations like the Community Foundation of the Dan River Region, the chambers of commerce and many others. I commend their efforts.

If we have a well-educated citizenry, then we will be in a better position to compete for contracts coming our way both locally and in our great nation.

Choice of educational offerings will be equally important as folks look at locating and/or staying in our community. Attracting businesses to our area is difficult enough; sustaining and growing these enterprises will require holistic thinking.

We therefore have to reflect back upon what originally brought us to our current position of economic dominance in the global market. What made us great? I sometimes wonder if we are losing the hunger that once characterized economic activity in the West.

‘A crisis is a terrible thing to waste’

Have we been given so much that we have become complacent? In my opinion, we have to again be innovators and agents of change as we once were — not mere followers who solely teach their children to fill in bubbles on a test, rather than critically respond in essay form or orally. To do so, an attitude of healthy competition needs to pervade life in our schools. There is a problem here, however: an uncomfortable truth. While we see the business world responding rapidly to changing economic conditions — often reacting at lightening pace, schools — on the other hand — traditionally change very slowly — you might say even glacially. Refocusing upon a strong and forward thinking work ethic is, in my opinion, another vital educational goal.

Many of us have witnessed economic crisis after crisis in this community. The hemorrhaging of jobs does not seem to end. It was like this when I grew up in Wales, United Kingdom, in the 1970s. At that time, the coal mines were shutting down. The industrial landscape changed dramatically and industrial South Wales went from having 45 working pits to today’s one. The effects on the community were devastating, as they have been here. And yet, as a youngster I learned what Paul Romer once said, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” Even in our darkest moments, we must not lose faith in our abilities to overcome difficulty. I firmly believe that education can play a key role in our long-term and short-term response to this situation, but the fight back will have to be led by more than teachers alone.

Qualified students

Let me be clear here, there are great individual teachers in our communities. I have witnessed them brilliantly craft their trade. These folks are already impacting this situation. We need to continue to focus on imparting skills that will be necessary for our kids to compete. We must support the professional development of our educators and recognize the valuable job they do in spite of the odds and a society that frankly gives them — or their profession — little or no respect.

Businesses are telling us what skills we need to teach children in order to be successful in the workplace. Schools need to listen and then act.

What then, is to be done?

Firstly, let me turn to students.

Qualified students will need to be able to communicate — not just reading and writing well, but also speaking publicly with confidence, listening effectively and viewing materials on the TV and Internet with a critical eye. They will need to be able to speak in more than one language. They need to become more self reliant, feeling comfortable using technology as a tool to their advantage. They need to know how to think critically in ethical ways, to be risk takers, to be principled and to be able to work in teams. Understanding how to learn from failure will also lead to growth and ultimate success. Businessmen will also tell you that our graduates will quickly have to learn to understand multiple perspectives. As important for students to learn is how to value themselves as unique individuals, to understand the importance of their own cultural heritage as well as being aware of the cultures of others.

Secondly, we should continue to upgrade the curriculum to see if we have sufficient emphasis on business and economics in our educational practice. We should encourage healthy competition in the classroom as well as collaboration (businesses do both). We should do all that we can to encourage students to continue with their education beyond high school, but in addition, give them exposure to the workplace as much as possible so that they can move from “knowing to doing.” There is no reason why a school curriculum should not contain information that will be useful after school is over.

Adjust, or be gone

If nothing else, I learned early on in life, when I saw coal mine after coal mine closing down (which had been artificially propped up by the socialist government through nationalization) and moving operations to Australia and Russia, that there were no “British jobs,” there were just “jobs.”

Ultimately, businesses would follow markets to pursue the best returns possible. They adjust quickly, or go out of existence.

We have to do the same in this community.

The children from Asia who attend our school all seem to understand the basic fact that education is critical for their future in the marketplace. Indeed, that is why they are here in America.

The question is, do we?

• Simon Owen-Williams is working as headmaster of Carlisle School located in Danville and Martinsville. He has worked in education for more than 25 years in Britain, Canada, Switzerland and New York before moving to Martinsville, He was born and raised in Wales, United Kingdom, and his family has called Southside Virginia home for 10 years.