Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Leaders

Level5, who rights a blog on leaders, posts his ambitions for a school. I was impressed. I've always been too afraid to attempt to create my 'utopian' school--for fear of missing something or contradicting myself or being just plain wrong. I would work for his school!
But this lead me to a question... How do you get the best leaders to be teachers? In the Kansas City Star, during the World Cup a few years back, an article ran about what the US National Men's Soccer Team would look like if our best athletes played. At first, I was hurt by the idea of putting football players and basketball players into "the best game ever," my favorite, soccer. Later I realized there was some truth to it. In talking to my friend Kevin, I came to see how soccer is not glorified in the US. So athletes, such as Michael Jordon, Carmelo Anthony, and Mark Maguire, who may have once started out playing soccer, soon concentrated on the sport that their dads love, that they thought would bring them the most fame and fortune, where they could be like their heroes. Even some of our best soccer players--Freddy Adu--first were exposed to the passion, love of soccer in another nation before coming to the US.
So how do we get our best athletes into soccer, where the play can be low and the reputation is possibly lower? Why would our wisest, best leaders want to go into the field of education... when they can become doctors, lawyers, politicians, CEOs of big corporations?