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XXXS aooi GOSQ
CF THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF TEACHING
F A X C O V E R S H E E T
DATE: (j> — 13
TO
: ^ J / ^ O i W y M - f f c r L FAX: 609-520-1712
NO. OF PAGES: (including cover sheet)
FROM
SUBJECT:
5 Ivy Lane, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 • Telephone (609) 452-1780 • Fax (609) 520-1712
M E M O R A N D U M
TO: Jay German
FROM: Jan Hempel
SUBJECT: May 14, 1994 Claremont Speech by Ernest L. Boyer
DATE: June 13, 1994
Here is the approved version of the speech Dr. Ernest Boyer delivered at Claremont University on May 14, 1994.
Nonexclusive permission is hereby granted for you to reproduce part or all of this speech for your publication, although it is our understanding that at this point your intent is to paraphrase the main ideas Dr. Boyer presents. Should you publish the speech, would you please send a copy of your publication with the speech to me for our records?
Thank you veiy much for your interest in the work of Dr. Boyer and the Carnegie Foundation.
6 - /'i
NEW STUDENTS, NEW SCHOOLS
Ernest L. Boyer President
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Claremont Graduate School Commencement Claremont University Claremont, California
May 14, 1994
Thank you very much. Kay and I are delighted to join you on this elegant
occasion and I'm especially pleased to become an honorary member of this
distinguished institution, along with Linda Darling-Hammond and Tom Payzant,
colleagues for whom I have profound respect and admiration.
We're also pleased to be here with John and Billie Maguire, whose lives have
been, for us, such an inspiration and whose friendship we deeply cherish. May I also
thank the faculty and Board of Fellows of Claremont Graduate School for your
generous recognition.
And I surely wish to extend a special word of congratulations to all the
graduates for completing with such success your academic program at one of the
world's most outstanding higher learning institutions.
I.
This afternoon I've been asked to talk briefly about the nation's schools and
perhaps the best place to begin is with the nation's first education goal, recently
ratified by Congress, which declares that by the year 2000 all children in America will
come to school "ready to learn."
This is, I realize, an audacious, hugely optimistic proposition. But dreams can
be fulfilled only if they've been defined, and if, during the decade of the 1990s, school
readiness would become a mandate for the nation, if this country would, in fact, focus
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with urgency on our youngest children, then I'm convinced that all of the other goals
would, in large measure, be fulfilled.
There is, of course, no easy answer, no simple strategy that will achieve
excellence for all. What is clear is that it's in the early years that curiosity abounds.
This is the time when learning exponentially expands. And, above all, it's in the early
years when children are empowered in the use of words. Lewis Thomas wrote on one
occasion that childhood is for language. And now that I'm a grandpa and cam observe
this process unencumbered by dirty diapers and burpings late at night, I'm absolutely
dazzled by the capacity of three- and four-year-olds to use language not only for
affection, but also as weapons of assault.
When I was growing up in Dayton, Ohio, we used to say, "Sticks and stones
may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." What nonsense! I'd say this
with tears running down my cheeks thinking, "Hit me with a stick, but stop the words
that penetrate so deeply and hurt so long."
I'm suggesting that school readiness means that every child must be socially,
emotionally, and linguistically well prepared. And for this to be accomplished wouldn't
it be wonderful if all children grew up in an environment that was "language rich"?
Wouldn't it be wonderful if all children received thoughtful answers to their questions
instead of "shut up" or "go to bed"? And wouldn't it be wonderful if every parent would
turn off the television set and read aloud to their children at least thirty minutes every
single day?
We have in America today nineteen million preschoolers. They watch television
fifteen billion hours every year. And frankly I consider it a national disgrace that not
one of the commercial TV networks devotes even one hour to the education of young
children. What they are fed is a steady diet of sex and violence and obscene language.
And then we wonder why schools are not disciplined and drug free. Simply stated,
3
school readiness means parents who first give love, then language, to their children.
And it means television that enriches, rather than degrades.
Speaking of the home and family influence, I'm increasingly convinced that
children need the guidance not just of parents, but of grandparents, too.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead said on one occasion that the strength of any culture is
sustained as three generations vitally interact, creating connections vertically across
the generations. And yet in America today, we're building a kind of horizontal culture,
with each age group living all alone. And we've even "institutionalized" this
generational separation. Today, infants are in nurseries, toddlers are in day care,
children are in schools organized by age, college students spend time separated on
campus, adults are in the workplace, and older people increasingly are living all alone.
Looking back, I'm impressed that one of the most important people in my own
life was my Grandfather Boyer, who lived to be one hundred. Grandpa, at the age of
forty, moved his little family into the heart of Dayton, Ohio, surrounded by the poor.
He spent the next forty years bringing food and clothing and spiritual encouragement
to those who were impoverished, and in the process taught me that God is central to
all of life and that to be truly human one must serve. These were lessons I could not
have learned as well in any classroom.
I'm convinced that if all children are to be well prepared for learning and for life,
we simply must begin to build intergenerational institutions to bring the old and
young together. School readiness, to put it simply, means connections across the
generations.
Beyond language empowerment and strong emotional support, "ready to learn"
also means giving to all children a healthy start. A child's physical well-being is
unquestionably tied to school performance, and good nutrition is absolutely crucial.
Winston Churchill said there is no greater investment for any nation than putting milk
into babies. And yet, in America today, one out of four children under the age of six is
4
officially classified as poor. One-fifth of ail pregnant women get belated prenatal
care—or none at all. Tens of thousands of babies are bom physically at risk. And
then we wonder why children come to school not well prepared to learn.
Kay, my wife, is a certified nurse-midwife. She delivers babies. For years she
worked with adolescent pregnant girls. These were children having children, who fed
their unborn infants Coke and potato chips and who belatedly were told about the
facts of life and the miracle of birth in between the labor pains. They grew up never
learning about what it means to become a mother or about the sacredness of bringing
another life into the world, and the fathers were ignorant as well.
It's absolutely clear that if all children are to be well prepared to leam, we must
build partnerships not just with homes and families, but with health providers, too,
since quality education and good health are inextricably connected.
II.
But there's another side to the equation.
While all children must be well prepared for school, it's also true that all schools
must be ready for the children.
Several years ago I proposed that we reorganize the first years of formal
education into a single unit called the Basic School. The Basic School would combine
kindergarten to grade five. It would give top priority to language, and every student,
from the very first, would be reading, writing, engaging in conversation, listening to
stories in what the foreign language people like to call the saturation method. And the
arts also would be a top priority in the Basic School, since music and rhythm and the
arts, as one teacher put it, are "the language of the angels."
Class size matters, too. And in the Basic School there would be no class with
more than fifteen students. Frankly, I find it ludicrous to hear school critics say class
size doesn't matter, especially in the early years when children urgently need one-on-
5
one attention. I've never taught kindergarten or first grade, but I do have
grandchildren, and when I take them to McDonald's I come home a basket case.
Frankly, it's a heroically complicated task just keeping track of all the orders, tracking
down lost gloves and boots, keeping mustard off the floor—and none of this relates to
mastering the ABCs or cramming for the SATs.
Teachers in the early grades have the most challenging work I know. I'm
convinced that if this country would give as much status to kindergarten and first
grade teachers as we give to full professors, that one act alone would revitalize the
nation's schools. And speaking of a restructured school, perhaps the time has come to
convert school boards into children's boards, to focus our priorities not just on
buildings and on budgets, but most especially on the full needs of students.
III.
This leads me to say a word about older students. Early education matters
most, but during our study of the American high school, I also became convinced that
we have not just a school problem but a youth problem, in this country. Far too many
teenagers feel unneeded, unwanted, and unconnected to the larger world. Even in the
school itself, there is a climate of anonymity and disconnection. In many high schools,
only the very good and very bad students are known by name. And I'm convinced that
a host of students drop out because no one noticed that they had, in fact, dropped in.
The poet Vachel Lindsay wrote "It is the world's one crime its babes grow
dull/Not that they sow, but that they seldom reap/Not that they serve, but have no
gods to serve/Not that they die but that they die like sheep." The tragedy is not death.
The tragedy is to die with commitments undefined, convictions undeclared, and
service unfulfilled.
Frankly, if I had just one wish for school reform, I'd break up every large school
into units of no more than five hundred students each, and I'd assign every student to
6
a small support group of twenty students that would meet with a mentor at the
beginning of each day, to receive guidance and support, to know that somebody truly
cares, to feel part of a community of caring.
I'd also like to see every high school student complete a community service
project, spending time in a retirement village, day care center, city park, or tutoring
other kids at schools, to help them see a connection between what they leam and how
they live. Martin Luther King, Jr., said everyone can be great, because everyone can
serve. And I'm convinced the young people of this country are ready to be inspired by
a larger vision.
IV.
This leads to one final observation.
When all is said and done, excellence in education means excellence in
teaching. To strengthen the nation's schools, we simply must give more dignity and
more status to the teacher. When I was United States Commissioner of Education, I
walked unannounced into a sixth-grade classroom in New Haven. I was startled to
discover that all thirty students were crowded around the teacher's desk, and I almost
ran to the office. But then I discovered that they weren't there in anger, but in
celebration. The students had just finished reading Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist and
were debating whether little Oliver could survive in New Haven. They concluded that
while he'd made it in far off London, he'd never survive successfully in New Haven, a
much tougher city. This was teaching and learning at its best.
The simple truth is that almost all of us are here today because of the
inspiration of a dedicated teacher. It's in the classrooms of the nation where the battle
for excellence in education will be won or lost. And to achieve excellence in education,
we don't need more rules and regulations, we need more teacher recognition. Further,
7
I'm convinced that most school critics could not survive one week in the classrooms
they condemn.
For more than a decade this nation has been engaged in an aggressive push for
school renewal, and while some progress has been made, the harsh truth is that the
effort has been only modestly successful. In the search for excellence, the time has
come for a new beginning, and for the decade of the nineties, the focus must be on
early education, on purposefulness for youth, and most especially on giving more
recognition to our teachers, who are the unsung heroes of the nation.
CGSC-T3.DOC. (SPC.ELB.JH/dmo). June 13. 1994
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