Following is the text from a slide-tape presentation prepared in April, 1970.

The Educational Talent Pool Reserve: a presentation of ECCO, the Educational and Cultural Center serving Onondaga and Oswego Counties of New York State.

Remember the story of the Sorcerer's Apprentice? [Graphics show how the apprentice seeks to make his job easier by animating the broom and bucket to fetch water, but ends with too many brooms and buckets doing the same thing, ending in disaster.]

The moral: Schools have tended to replicate teachers, adding teachers to teachers, all with the same training and behavior.

Instead of just adding teachers to solve our educational problems, let's pool the talents of teachers, plumbers, carpenters, electrical engineers, housewives, and systems analysts into a reserve corps to help improve our educational systems.

The Educational Talent Pool Reserve: This reserve will allow a pooling of human resources through which talented members of the community may participate in the educational program.

Participants: Participants in the Talent Pool need not be teachers, but they will have an interest in and commitment to improving education by sharing their special skills and competencies.

Reservists: Using the concept of a "reserve corps" similar to the ROTC, reservists would be given the training needed for them to function effectively in the schools. Upon completion of this training, they would be placed on reserve status, ready to serve the schools in time of need.

Community Involvement: The Educational Talent Pool Reserve will improve the education of our citizens, both young and old, through total Community Involvement, not just an involvement of dollars, but of human resources as well.

What are some of the problems education is facing today and will be facing in the future?

Knowledge: One is the fantastic growth of knowledge. More new information has been added to our bank of knowledge in the past 20 years then was discovered between the birth of Christ and the middle of the 20th Century. (It has been estimated that knowledge is doubling every eight years.)

Relevancy: We face the growing problem of making learning relevant to the student and his world of today and tomorrow. Students must see the need to learn and they must be able to apply this learning in the world in which they live.

Technology: We can no longer depend solely on the teacher and the textbook. We have added the technology of film, computers, television, programmed learning, and many others to help solve the problems of more students, more information and less time. But, technology goes beyond mere hardware. We are developing new methods of organizing and managing information and people.

Professional Growth: Educators must keep up with changes in their special areas and new approaches to teaching. Is is no longer sufficient to go through four or five years of teacher preparation and then spend the next 20 or 30 years in the classroom. Teachers must grow in their professional competencies through continuing study and participation. Time must be made available for this kind of professional growth.

Use of the adjunct staff of the Educational Talent Pool will make it possible to release teachers and administrators from their normal duties in order to participate in professional growth experiences at minimal costs to the schools.

Efficiency: Efficiency is of concern to students, teachers, administrators, and the community at large. Taxpayers are asking why education is so expensive. Schools must be made accountable to the community. We must raise the level of effectiveness of our schools through more efficient use of our resources, both financial and human.

Objectives: The Educational Talent Pool Reserve can help solve these problems by meeting its stated objectives. It will:

¥Involve all segments of the community in the school system.

¥Develop a better understanding of the educational process and system by members of the community.

¥Establish a talent pool of commited individuals who are qualified to man and manage the educational system in times of need.

¥Identify and develop the new role of the teacher.

¥Identify and develop the new role of the learner.

¥Identify and develop the new role of the community.

¥Identify those members of the community who have needed skills and who are willing to make a long-term commitment to education.

¥Develop models for new curricular and/or organizational structures.

The Educational Talent Pool can reach these objectives by first, identifying the specific needs of the schools and the human resources available to meet these needs.

Participants in the program will enter the educational system at different levels, depending upon their own skills and talents.

Commitment of Personnel: For the new Educational Talent Pool Reserve to be effective, two types of commitments must be made. First, participants will make a commitment to education which might be life-long, or for a specific period of time. They may be called upon to serve varying lengths of time during their service period... from one day to a full year... from a week of active service to a standby status for five years or more.

Commitment of Schools: The Educational System must also make a commitment to the concept of the Talent Pool Reserve. Schools must be willing to accept the participating volunteers as skilled specialists in their various areas. They must call upon these participants to make effective use of their expertise, not serve as substitute baby sitters.

Who will participate? Participation in the Talent Pool is voluntary. Participants will be called upon to serve in various capacities depending upon their skills and talents and the needs of the schools.

By opening the Talent Pool to Participation by individuals with special skills, experiences or interests, it will be manned by business executives, engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, psychologists, artists, musicians, actors, secretaries, computer operators, plumbers, carpenters, politicians, any of the myriad of other skills that are required in a modern society.

Students: The Educational Talent Pool will offer the opportunities for college students to bring to education their enthusiasm, skill and commitment for service to society. Their major field of study is not important but they will have a chance to participate in the program in order to develop skills and talents outside their own specialized area... skills and talents which may lead to a second career.

Inactive Teachers: One special source of participants of the Talent Pool is the large group of inactive teachers in any community. Many teachers have left education to raise families of their own with the intention of coming back into the field after their children are grown. By participating in the Talent Pool, such teachers can keep current with the ever-changing educational system and the expanding body of knowledge.

Retired Teachers: Teachers who have retired from active service in the profession because of age often want to remain active, but find it difficult. The Talent Pool would serve as a channel through which these people can be of value to the schools and to themselves.

Training: Each participant, regardless of his specialty, will be given training in the psychological-humanistic approach to education. It is assumed that each individual has some special skill which he is willing to share. The participants will be given basic sessions in humanistic philosophy.

During their training, the participant's special skills and experiences will be related to the needs of the schools. Each training program will be individually prescribed depending upon the background of the trainee and the role he will eventually play in the educational process.

Types of Support: For the Talent Pool to be effective, two types of support will be needed, financial and human.

Financial Support: Financial support will come from the schools who are using the Talent Pool; from existing federal, state, local funding and additional support from business and industry.

Human Support: Human support will be based on the sincere commitment of the individual participant who makes available his time and efforts to the improvement of education.

Who will benefit from the Educational Talent Pool?

Community: The community will benefit through major contributions from business and industry. This is a two-way street: the community will better understand the school; the school will better understand the community.

Students: Many benefits to students are offered as a result of the Talent Pool -- a variety of experiences, opportunity for in-depth study, relevancy, contact with people in the field.

Participants: By participating in the Educational Talent Pool Reserve, the individual participant will gain personal satisfaction, have the opportunity to improve his own skill and he may add to his income. Participants may also be able to take advantage of an existing retirement program.

Organizations: Organizations who support the Educational Talent Pool will benefit through improved community relations. By serving in the Talent Pool, the organization's representatives will develop skills which are of value to their employers as well as to the school, and this may be considered a legitimate business expense.

Education: The greatest benefit to education is that through using the adjunct staff a greater flexibility in schedules of the teachers and administrators will allow them time for professional growth experiences, experiences such as conferences, workshops or seminars designed to help improve instruction.

But will it really work? Will individuals, organizations, and schools be willing to support the Talent Pool? The answer to this is yes.

Volunteers from such industries as the New York Telephone Company and the General Electric Company have successfully worked in a Junior High School in Syracuse, New York, on a joint school-industry program. As our professional volunteer said, "The students recognized us as coming from industry, and we thereby established a credibility very difficult for their classroom teachers to achieve."

A systems analyst who worked with Junior High School students on the application and use of the analog computer said, "The undertaking proved to beneficial not only to the students but to me, too! The potential benefits of a more diversified community resources commitment to the educational process is truly staggering."

One success story concerns a housewife who volunteered to help children with reading deficiencies. One such student was Sam, who at 14 years old was reading at the first grade level. Three years later, Sam was reading at the pre-college level. He went on to finish the 11th grade and when he was 18, Sam joined the Army. He is now studying to take his High School Equivalency exam, thanks in great part to the efforts of a volunteer housewife.*

Sam did learn to read. Others can become doctors, nuclear scientists, or teachers with the help of committed individuals and enlightened leadership.

The Educational Talent Pool Reserve is based on the concept of pooling the resources of the community to make learning relevant and meaningful to all our citizens. It faces the problems of increasing knowledge, technology and cost effectiveness through total community involvement.

This presentation of the Educational Talent Pool Reserve, a concept developed by ECCO, has suggested some alternatives; new ways of facing old problems. To make it work will demand a concerted effort in planning and development. This is ECCO's role: Projecting, Facilitating, Planning and Developing Learning Environments.

Prepared by the Educational and Cultural Center, Syracuse, New York 4/70

*Editor's Note: That housewife was Ruth Colvin, who was then in the process of founding Literacy Volunteers of America, an organization that has since spread throughout the United States and taught countless people to read, changing their lives forever.