Thursday, September 22, 2011

Baby Boomers to the Rescue


“When the cold front of demographics meets the warm front of unrealized dreams, the result will be a thunderstorm of purpose the likes of which the world has never seen,” says Daniel Pink in his book Drive of the possibilities that arise as Baby Boomers retire. Boomers were on the whole very educated and successful—a generation who experienced great opportunities and sweeping changes in this country. Now, as they reach retirement, many Boomers are looking for what to do next; and as Elizabeth Olson’s recent New York Times article shows, teaching is a popular choice. Retired scientists and engineers are reinventing themselves as high school math teachers. On the surface, this might just seem like a feel-good story about retirees “giving back,” but as NCTAF has documented (click here for our “Did You Know?” video about America’s aging educators), we need to find ways of leveraging the Boomer generations talents and experience if we’re going to transform education.

Though there are some retirees, like those mentioned in this article, who have the time and desire to go through the teacher certification to become a teacher. However, NCTAF understands the need to find alternative ways to bring Boomers from a variety of professions (including retired educators) into the schools in an organized and sustainable way that will have real impact on student learning.

NCTAF is beginning this work more in our STEM Learning Studios, which put STEM teachers in middle and high schools in teams with practicing scientists, content specialists, and retired teachers. These teams work develop hands-on, interdisciplinary projects that address real-world problems to make STEM subjects come alive for students. As this project both expands and deepens, we are securing more partnerships with business, government, and institutions of higher education to build out a volunteer corps of retirees, who be able to give back in ways that are realistic in terms of time commitment but that really matter for students and teachers.

No comments:

Post a Comment