Why schools aren't businesses: The blueberry story

Education is often criticized for being too theoretical and that it leaves young people ill- prepared for the real world. The world is changing so fast that students should be able to earn while they learn and learn while they earn. 

The topic that I selected this week is: Why schools aren’t businesses: The blueberry story. When I first read this article, I had mixed views. In my opinion, schools today are ran like a business. They have forgotten about the quality of education and its students. On the other hand, education is a business that does need rediscovering and that we should embrace this as a time when we are eager as a profession to compete. To me, the real truth is that education is the business.

Jamie Vollmer was a successful and a former ice cream company executive and he was also an education advocate and the author of the book called “Schools Cannot Do It Alone.” In the middle 80’s, People Magazine chooses their blueberry as the “Best Ice Cream in America.” (Let’s say blueberries are associated with students in this article). One day a speech was given by Vollmer during teachers in-service to a room filled with about 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians and secretaries. His speech was consisted of many views:  “Public schools need to change, schools were out of step with the needs and demands of our emerging society and that educators helped to contribute to the problems. Teachers resisted change, they were hunkered down in their feathered nets and protected by tenure and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly.”

After his speech, a veteran English teacher challenged Vollmer. The questions that she asked Vollmer were: Even though you have an exceptional and profitable business that caters to and serves the best ice cream in America and even though the ice cream has super premium ingredients, sixteen percent butterfat and is rich and smooth in taste……. but what happens when you receive an inferior shipment of blueberries? He stated, we send them back. The veteran English explained that we cannot send our blueberries back. “The come to us big and small, rich and poor, gifted and exceptional, abused and frightened, confident and homeless, rude and brilliant, ADHD, junior rheumatoid arthritis and English as their second language. We take them all! Every One!”

The moral to the story is that Jamie Vollmer realized that schools help to reflect attitudes and beliefs. Teachers are not the problem, society is. Teachers cannot fight our educational system alone. Voices must be heard to make a difference.

Reference

Nevins, B.(2008).”Why Schools Can’t Run Like A Business”.Browardbeat.com. Retrieved from http://www.browardbeat.com/why-schools-cant-run-like-a-business

Spinder, P.(2013). Is it a business or a school? The Fifth Conference. Retrieved from http://www.fifthconference.com/topic/people/it-business-or-school

Strauss, V. (2013). Why schools aren’t businesses: The blueberry story. The Washington Post. Retrieved from  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/07/09/why-schools-arent-businesses-the-blueberry-story/?print=1