The ACLS Education Program began its work in 1993. Our work has been based on the assumption that the intellectual and institutional gulf between schools and colleges has deprived schools of the critical contribution humanities scholars should be making to K-12 education. We also believe that teachers have an important contribution to make to college educators.
Many college freshmen arrive without having yet internalized the value of a liberal arts education.
School teachers have long been committed to working with a cross section of students, some of whom would elect not to be in school at all. The best have responded to this challenge by developing a rich repertoire of methods that can engage the most reluctant students in meaningful academic activity, while enriching the experiences of more mature and motivated students. As undergraduate programs put more emphasis on teaching, and the student body at many colleges becomes increasingly diverse, scholars will find that teachers have much to offer them. Many of our constituent societies not only share these assumptions but have been working in K-12 education for years. In the fall of 1997, we did a survey of the societies to gain a better understanding of the nature and scope of their K-12 work.