This apathy has not developed overnight. It has been a gradual seduction into oblivion by the very forces that have changed our society over the last half century. However, the ready accessibility of all forms of media communique, a materialistically minded economy and a mechanized society leave our schools with little ammunition for competition. If we as America's educators are loud enough with our outcry, the media will come to realize that the fight for democracy in Eastern Europe, the destruction of rain forests in South America, the political and economic struggles in the Middle East, the growth of Japan's economic superiority, and the drug-related violence of our own urban areas are the issues of education in America. Their cameras will be in our classrooms, but perhaps it will be too late.
Teaching is a nice profession.
It makes one feel good to be nice to children. The time off in the summer is nice. It's nice to get twenty-six valentines every February. Teachers without this desire find the classroom boring, their students and the system failing. Society needs education's product, well-honed minds, but it does little to encourage our system of production.