Completely Random

I don't know if I've told you already, but I know what I want to do with the rest of my life.
I want to work in the field of education, as a student of education and educational policy, as a teacher, and someday as an educational policy analyst. Yup.
Now that that's out of the way, I want to get to my main point. I had some free time so I read up a little on my American current events and politics and was reading through profiles of Barack Obama's appointees to various important positions with interesting titles. I got to one of the profiles that interested me the most: that of Arne Duncan, the appointee to the position of the Secretary of Education. I knew a little bit about him from articles that I had read in the past, that he was a non-partisan, very uncontroversial figure in the world of American education and was therefore a great candidate to further causes on either side of any debate concerning the future of public education. But one thing struck me: he has no formal experience as a teacher.
He majored in Sociology at Harvard University, graduated at the top of his class and went on to study education extensively from an administrative and policy-related angle. He is a member of the boards of countless educational organizations and committees and is currently the CEO of Chicago Public Schools. So he clearly has lots of experience and an extensive amount of knowledge about the educational system. This shocked me, because the rough plan that I have designed for me to someday be able to make change and improve American public education began with me becoming certified to be a teacher and teaching for quite some time.

Why did I decide this?
I had the chance to take a phenomenal course called the History of American Education at Wellesley last year, and for my final research paper, I wrote 15 pages about the effectiveness of Teach for America. I concluded that while the program is necessary because of the fact that we have a shortage in the supply of teachers, that we need to work towards a society and system in which teachers are appreciated and valued more to increase the incentive to become a qualified teacher and decrease the opportunity costs that many potential teachers see as a negative in their choice between becoming a teacher and becoming something else. Basically, that Teach for America, even with its wonderful intentions and some good outcomes, has its problems, including the fact that it diminishes the value of a proper teacher education program to 4 weeks of crash courses in how to be a teacher, but that those problems are only reflections of problems that the American society and educational system must confront, as well.
But after writing this paper, I had this strange feeling of guilt or something else...I can't quite describe it. I felt as though I had no right to criticize or analyze an institution that I had not yet taken part in. In other words, I felt that I had no right to criticize or call for change in teaching and teacher education until I myself had been a teacher.
I like the sound of Arne Duncan, not only because he has a cool name, but because with his track record, it seems that he is trying to advance the issues of public education without leaving any faction offended or out of consideration. That's important.

But I still can't believe he has never been a teacher.