Denis Ian is a reader of the blog. He probably recalls that Rex Tillerson called our students “defective products.” He is Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of State. He is CEO of ExxonMobil, where he has worked for 41 years. A rather limited experience of the world. In 2015, his salary was $27.2 million
Denis Ian writes:
“Experts often possess more data than judgment.”
Bureaucrats tell doctors how to doctor, video gamers tell the military how to strategize, and some guys … like Rex Tillerson of Exxon Mobil … tell teachers what they’re supposed to do … and then remind them that HE is the real customer of education.
Well, it seems that the customer is not always right after all.
Tillerson needs to get down on his hands and knees and reattach his soul to five year olds … or young teens … or anyone else who lives in a school. He insists that kids are products. Not such a smart statement.
So, let’s try to help.
Schools don’t exist as a minor league proving grounds for any industry. Lots of kids have career dreams that don’t include Exxon. What you do has no appeal for lots and lots of young folks. They dream differently than you. Their passions run in opposite directions. And you should learn to be very okay with that.
Schools are there to widen minds and grow creativity … the very attributes that will grow your own business in the years ahead. One day those school children will supply new solutions for new problems … because they were nurtured to be problems-solvers instead of regurgitating robots.
Are you following me here?
You’ve earned no special say in how schools are run. In fact, they’re safer with you at a greater distance.
Schools have a mission that’s timeless. They’ll produce folks who are like minded and contra-minded … and everything in between. It’s the sort of diverse thinking that produces unusual solutions and innovative advancements.
Our stake as the greatest nation on the planet is rooted in our schools … and by extension … our teachers.
We are the premier nation. The most sought after destination of all. No other nation tops America as the most wishful destination for millions and millions around the planet.
We are the model entrepreneurs of the world. And many entrepreneurs … like yourself … first tested their creativity on cold linoleum floors in extra-tiny classrooms … in homey little districts. Those were the warm incubators that welcomed silly risks and rewarded their efforts to cruise outside outside of the box.
American classrooms create wonder and possibilities … and they don’t produce any products. They help all kinds of potential to grow … and that sort of stuff is beyond quality control.
Teachers live in the encouraging zone … even in the most discouraging circumstances … urging kids to be daring thinkers … to stretch themselves as never before. To wonder. And imagine. And then act on those dreams.
Teachers knock down road-blocks and crash open doors. Their infectious sense of adventure is viral stuff. That invisible fuel that grows success that seems unlikely in the most unlikely kids … except to them.
Where did politicians first hone their skills? And inventors? How did doctors learn to dream pf “doctoring”? And those fifth grade straw bridges? How did they become reality thirty years later? Because a teacher marveled a child into thinking,”I can do this!”. And they did.
That’s not a product. That’s a miracle.
The moment schools become the handmaidens of business … or politics … they cease being schools and become boot camps. They last thing schools should foster is conformity and group-think.
Education isn’t business. Public education is the only institution that expects failure. Business loathes failure. In schools, the freedom to fail is the flip-side of the freedom to dream. With practice, it makes success a habit
So, if Rex Tillerson and the Exxon boys … or any other entrepreneurs … want a long and profitable future, they should leave their future fortunes in the hands of the dream-makers … those teacher-magicians who live on cold classroom floors and never forget that schools jump-start imaginations … and help create the Rex Tillersons of the world.
Denis Ian
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well, Denis, I was with you until you suggest that schools should, do or will create the Rex Tillersons of the world. Au contraire.
Schools should nurture empathy, not ruthless competition. Schools should develop children who know that exploiting resources and people for unconscionable profit is immoral. Schools should arouse a powerful environmental ethic in all children so that they will save the world, not lead it to the brink of cataclysm. Schools should lead children to understand that consorting with vicious men like Putin is selling your soul. Schools should teach children to never accept anything, including a cabinet position, from narcissistic, sexual assaulters who cheat their wives and business associates.
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Easy; he meant Corporate leaders , a few of whom are more like Ben and Jerry But your comment adds to his.
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Well said, Steve!
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What rubbish Tillerson talks. He’s only had one job in all his life.
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WELL SAID!!!
Let us hope and pray that we survive the next 4 years with public education intact. 👩🏽🎓👨🏻🎓👩🏫🙏
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Our world is on the cusp of major generational changes and the future is uncertain. Public Education is the best hope to see us through. The pace of change continues to accelerate. Our challenge is to “fix” education and not destroy it in the misguided approaches of the charters, vouchers, VAM’s, and standardized tests employed over the past 20 years.
We must quit trying to use the quick fix, cheapest ideas that satisfy an ideological “free enterprise ” framework. We must employ sound, well documented pedagogical theory and… BE WILLING TO PAY 💰 FOR IT!
There is no better way to get prepared for our future and no other investment that will give greater rewards.
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Tillerson like many other business leaders believe that schools provide a service to prepare “human capital” for their companies. They can only see humans for their utilitarian value to business. It is a capitalist mentality. Educators understand that the purpose of education goes much deeper than that.
A bigger concern about Tillerson is his connection to Russia. These connections run deep. Exxon Mobil plans to work with the Russians to exploit the oil and gas reserves in the Arctic. Obama’s move may put a damper on some of this, but rest assured, the Russians and Exxon Mobil have a team looking for loopholes. Exxon Mobil has several shadow companies registered in the Bahamas, where they pay zero tax, set up to partner with the Russians and other unpopular nations, with the purpose of drilling for gas and oil. Tillerson is a walking, talking conflict of interest. https://www.icij.org/blog/2016/12/tillerson-directed-offshore-company-used-russia-deals
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Right from the US Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Education and Workforce webpage…Seems like a pretty clear mission statement to me:
“The Center for Education and Workforce, through its research, programs, and policy on education and skills training, mobilizes the business community to be more engaged partners, challenge the status quo, and connect education and workforce reforms to economic development.”
It’s all about creating workers and consumers, not about creating free thinkers, philosophers, nurturers, artists or poets. It’s all about mammon.
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Overall well written, Denis! Thanks for sharing, Diane!
A quibble though: “Public education is the only institution that expects failure. Business loathes failure. In schools, the freedom to fail is the flip-side of the freedom to dream.”
No, no, no said in an exasperated teacher’s disapproving voice. Or as I say ay ay ay!
Never once in 21 years as a public school teacher did I ever “expect failure” from a student. Nor have I ever heard anyone state such. It’s from the the four letter “F” word that is so ingrained in our society due to the antiquated simplistic letter grading system of A-F where only the F has an actual word attached to it-FAIL.
Now I believe what Denis means is that it is okay to dream, to try things further out there from a student’s current being-sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t work out as planned but either one is part of the teaching and learning process. And, many times, it is when something doesn’t work out when the most learning occurs. To consider that a “failure” is a failure to understand the teaching and learning process.
I can see the edudeformers and privateers having a field day with “Public education is the only institution that expects failure”. “Hey, look at what one of the union thug Ravitch supported public school teachers says ‘We expect students to fail’, no wonder public education stinks and isn’t worth the money we sink into that pit of mediocrity.”
That four letter “F” word-fail, so much worse than the other most despised four letter “f” word when we apply it to students and/or schools.
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What are the main purposes of education? Here is the position of Senator Rob Portman, Ohio Republican. It mirrors the position of Governor John Kasich.
Children and young people have worth if they enter the workforce prepared to compete in high demand fields in Ohio.
This is part of Portman’s boilerplate reply to my email urging him not to confirm Betsy DeVos.
I believe that the most important role in educating tomorrow’s workforce is played by parents, teachers, mentors, and community leaders at the state and local level. At a time when young people are leaving our state, we must work collaboratively in our communities to give students the tools necessary to compete in high demand fields in Ohio.
What might this boilerplate mean?
In late 2016, the “Ohio Means Jobs” website listed 210 “in demand” jobs in Ohio. If Portman is correct, then Ohio schools should be preparing students to compete for positions these Ohio jobs:
Registered Nurses; Customer Service Representatives; General Office Clerks; Nursing Aides, Orderlies, and Attendants; Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses; Heavy and Tractor‐Trailer Truck Drivers; Secretaries and Administrative Assistants (Except Legal, Medical, and Executive): Accountants and Auditors; General and Operations Managers; and Medical Secretaries and so on.
Portman’s reasoning, like that of Kasich, is sloppy. It is designed to appeal to large swaths of the business community and “Ohio first” parochialism. Although K-12 includes some posturing about jobs (e.g., college and career reasy), Ohio’s higher education programs are seriously under threat from new demands for accountability. These are sharply focused on the jobs and earnings of graduates. Studies in the arts and humanities have little or no value under this regime.
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See my response below for the actual purpose of public education as stated in many state constitutions.
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It’s part of an unspoken mentality that those who attend elite private and parochial schools are groomed to be employers and the public school students should be happy to be employees, especially at low wages. The former don’t need standards, the latter must adhere to them.
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“Schools are there to widen minds and grow creativity. . . ”
Yes, for that helps public schools to fulfill their constitutional raison d’etre as noted in 20 of the twenty five constitutions that give a reason for the mandate of public education: “to promote the welfare of the individual so that each person may savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry.”
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Duane. You have offered an wonderful analysis and summary. Thank you.
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What Little Fingers, Rex Tillerson and the Exxon boys, Presidents G. W. Bush and Obama, and Betsy DeVos, (and other corporate privatizers of the public sector) do not understand is that the public schools are not there to train human bots for corporate jobs.
Large businesses only employ 38 percent of the private sector workforce while small businesses employ 53 percent of the workforce. In fact, over 99 percent of of employing organization are small businesses and more than 95 percent of these business have fewer than 10 employees.
It’s a safe bet that these small businesses are not looking for corporate clones but “individuals” that fit into their local community as trusted and cherished hard-working individuals.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristie-arslan/five-big-myths-about-amer_b_866118.html
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Duane: Yes–I like that one: “widen minds and grow creativity . . .” And we should remember that “welfare” has been given a bad name, as if it refers merely to “giveaway” programs to undeserving slobs (now THERE’s how pervasive propaganda is). But provide for the general welfare means that government policy and its implementation are about setting the foundational conditions for everyone to fare well. I don’t see anything about preparing to become legitimate by working for “the man.”
BTW, the failure thing is also directly related to the self-corrective process that we all have as a part of our being human. The prime example is the scientist who cannot leave a problem alone, and goes through all sorts of “failed” experiments, until it’s finally solved and then, to boot, is made systematic. God bless them all.
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School’s purpose is to incubate happy, creative people who respect life. School must be guided by professional educators and parents; it is too important to trust to politicians. Common sense and the experience of millions of educators informs us that teacher experience and depth of teacher education along with class size are three key ingredients to great education. Most teachers will tell you it took them more than a decade to really hone their classroom skills and then they still continued to grow and mature as educators. Amateurs like business executives and other philanthropic wealthy disparately need to recognize their limitations and value professionalism and experience. It is important that they quit meddling in what you do not understand!
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hear, hear.
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ciedie aech: I guess the Trump children didn’t “get it” in their education, such as it is. They want to sell, and make money on, everything under the sun, including access to their father.
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Thanks Ciedie. Ever since I read “Why You Always Got to Be Trippin,” I knew we were simpatico. Happy Holidays to you and your family.
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And to yours! 🙂
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