AFT-Speeches

Shanker speaks about recruiting people to the field of teaching by raising salaries and providing a better working environment. Shanker expresses the need for the field to gain a good reputation again.

In this speech Shanker is speaking at the 23rd Annual University Forum, his speech begins on page 6. He is talking about the topic of God, the Constitution, and Schools from an educational point of view. Shanker addresses issues such as; Prayer in Schools, the nature of textbooks, evolution v. creationism, teaching values and the efforts to restructure education so that parents can have publicly funded religious schools.

This document summarizes Al Shanker's presentation to The Forum and the subsequent question and answer session. Shanker calls for a restructuring of the educational system. He questions the effectiveness of the current model whereby students are required to sit in a chair and listen for hours. He cites an experimental school in Germany that changes this model. In this German school, students are grouped and then eight teachers stay with the group from fifth grade through the age of nineteen. Students are encouraged to work collaboratively to come up with creative answers.  read more »

This short speech addresses the treatment of diverse peoples in school textbooks. Al Shanker urges that the stories of under-represented groups be told, but he warns against inclusion at the expense of historical accuracy. He describes the risk of exchanging one set of myths (i.e. American history consists of great white men performing virtuous deeds) for another set of myths (i.e. American history consist of white men oppressing and exploiting white women and people of other ethnicities).  read more »