Celebrate Learning
Page 2
from recent installation of bird boxes and pitfall traps; additional dendrochronology studies; and development of ecoregion management goals and priorities. The West Campus Cross
Timbers is an ancient and pristine forest, which with proper
conservation management and preservation will continue to
serve as an outdoor classroom and public education site for future generations.
Undergraduate research students from left to right are Houston
Wells, Alicia Torres, Courtney Pace, Jamie Snyder, and Jimmy
Bowen with Dr. Janet Braun, Curator of Mammals at the Sam
Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History.
Teaching Hope
bolic as it might sound, we are losing our place in the
world—fast, really fast.
By Lyndel P. Colglazier
“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved
by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by
obvious realities. We need men who can dream of
things that never were.”
John F. Kennedy
Percy Bysshe Shelley said, “Poets are the legislators of the world,” but I believe, in this world, the
world of US education, the one of declining learning
outcomes, falling literacy rates, and mediocre, if not
abysmal, academic standards, teachers are the legis-
lators. We have the power of the classroom and the
I confess I like the idea of my country being #1 future of our country in our hands. We are the ones
in the world, even though my fondness for that desig- who live and work in the trenches and make dreams
nation doesn’t comport with my spiritual beliefs or
my ethics about being in this world.
come alive.
I know there are pockets of excellence, of ex-
I recognize that all great powers get a little tattered
traordinary success. I have those students, too. I
over time: The sheen goes flat, their standing shrinks. know what I say here doesn’t apply to every single
No more strolling onto the global stage, puffed to
student or to every single teacher. But I also know
take over. That’s okay. I can live with being second
we all fight against the nightmare tide of student apa-
or third. Besides, I still admire Britain, Spain, and
thy, ignorance, and unwillingness to learn. The conFrance, and Greece and Italy will never have to apolo- sequences are devastating to democracy. The narragize for their gifts to humanity.
tive fabric that holds us together as a nation is wearBut if recent studies—added to the mounds of ing thin these days, and, as the American historian
studies over the past two decades—are any indicaAriel Durant once noted, “A great civilization is not
tion of where we stand in the world, I am both horrified and terrified. I love my country, and as hyper-
conquered from without until it has destroyed itself