Speaking at a panel discussion titled "Religious Conservatives and Public Schools: Can We Find Common Ground?", Charles Haynes of the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University argued that educators have alienated religious conservatives by ignoring religion. While schools must preserve the separation of church and state, they can teach about religions, protect the religious speech of students, accommodate students' religious needs, promote good civic and moral character, and teach about different cultures and our shared responsibilities as citizens, Haynes said. "These are straightforward things." Controversies over school programs must be solved through democratic discourse, Haynes emphasized. But he urged educators to build bridges with the community before controversies erupt. "Be proactive. Don't wait until others force the issue," he advised. "If you think it's risky [to explore sensitive issues], the greater risk is not to bring these issues to the surface."
Schools are being pushed to help students achieve at higher levels than ever before, Floretta McKenzie, president of the McKenzie Group, told a packed General Session. But the challenges are growing. She mentioned specifically the violence that is becoming a common part of many young people's lives. "That fear affects students everywhere," she said. "We are at risk of losing most of a generation of young people." Somehow, schools have to teach students "coping skills" and provide strong, caring adults to whom students can turn, McKenzie said. In closing, McKenzie urged participants to "deal with the truth so that we can save these children."
Disgusted by lack of parental support? Frustrated by students' lack of effort? Weary of top-down mandates? Most classroom teachers face such problems, but "high-performing teachers" manage to surmount them, said Lee Canter, author of Assertive Discipline. These teachers have a strong personal sense of their mission, Canter said, and they also realize that they make the choices that will help them achieve their mission. In a humorous role play, Canter illustrated how teachers can rise above daily travails. Playing the part of a teacher assigned a "troubled" student, Canter "telephoned" the reluctant and befuddled student (an unsuspecting audience member) at home before the start of the semester, asking what the teacher could do to make the school year "the best of your life." The point was clear. "All of us can be high-performing," he said. "It is the choices we make in response to the challenges that truly shape our destiny."
Speaking of the value of art before a General Session audience, Jamake Highwater, an author and art critic, underscored that knowledge is barren without the capacity for feeling and imagination. "Imagination puts us in touch with our world and with one another; the facts do not," Highwater said. "Important human attitudes like tolerance and acceptance can exist only if we are capable of imagining being someone other than ourselves. Otherwise we believe that we are right and everybody else, therefore, has to be wrong.... We can't imagine a world big enough that it can include and accept a variety of ideas, orientations, and beliefs. Without imagination, we are alone."