The Braswell Lecture

Transforming the Profession: Teaching in the 21st Century

	By Roshelle Branch, Campus News

Have you ever heard of the phrase “a mind is a terrible thing to waste?” On March 12th, the annual Braswell Lecture was held at Mount Olive College.

Sponsored by the Teacher Education Committee and the Prospective Teacher’s Association at MOC, the Braswell Lecture is held in memory of Jessie Dail Braswell. Braswell taught in Princeton public schools for 34 years and demonstrated a life-long commitment to education. The Jessie Dail and Walter Vernon Braswell Endowment funds the Braswell Scholarship program, which has the potential of providing annual scholarships valued at $6,500 each. Since 1998 the Braswell Lecture has featured North Carolina leaders in education and presented addresses on significant issues.

After acknowledgments, Dr. Thomas Benson, chair of the Education Department at Mount Olive College, introduced Dr. Kathy Sullivan, senior policy advisor of the North Carolina State Board of Education. Dr. Sullivan started her presentation by saying that she “was pleased to see so many public school people present.” To show just how much education has changed over the years, Dr. Sullivan mentioned that in 1492 Columbus discovered that the world was round, and in 2005 Thomas Friedman wrote a book called The World Is Flat.

Dr. Sullivan noted was that for every 100 NC students only 28 finish their second year of college, and only 19 graduate with an associate or bachelor degree within six years.

The mission of the North Carolina State Board of Education is that “every public school student will graduate from high school, globally competitive for work, postsecondary education and prepared for life in the 21st Century.

Dr. Sullivan discussed the qualifications for teachers in North Carolina. According to Dr. Sullivan a NC teacher must pass five teaching standards that include demonstrating leadership, establishing a respectful environment for their students, knowing the content of what they are teaching, facilitating a learning environment for their students and reflecting on their practice.

She said that it is important that teachers mix core subjects together like a kaleidoscope so that students can appreciate how English, Reading/Language, Arts, Mathematics, Science, Foreign Language and Government courses are important in their lives. She also mentioned that children of today will have jobs that we don’t know about yet and that teachers must teach in a way to reach students. Due to growing technology, teachers have to teach in a world by using Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, blogs, Skype, and text messaging.

After the lecture, Dr. Sullivan entertained several questions. When asked about the increasing dropout rate, she said that “if there was more joy in the classroom we probably wouldn’t lose as many children because if the teacher is not interested in what they are teaching, then how are the students going to be motivated to learn?” When she was asked about the use of textbooks in the classroom, she thinks that, “21st century teachers will rely less on textbooks and focus more on technology because you can’t have a textbook that will keep up with everything in the future.”

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