The Maine Humanities Council's programs for teachers are based on an unconventional premise: teachers are intellectuals. They are people who read deeply, who enjoy talking about what they have read, who take ideas seriously, who question what they are told.

This is a radically different model from what prevails in many American schools. Teachers as test coaches, teachers as babysitters, teachers as therapists - these are typical expectations of educators' roles. If there is time left in the frenetic school day for creative and intellectually exciting teaching, fine, but it's not what schools are really expected to do. An industrial model of schooling - uniform practices, rigid hierarchies, precisely measurable learning outcomes - still prevails throughout much of the country.

Happily for Maine, many of its school districts have escaped this strait jacket. Innovative curricula, stimulating teachers, new technology initiatives abound. Yet, given the lack of funding within the system for sustained, high-quality professional development opportunities, many teachers in Maine find they are so overwhelmed by day-to-day tasks, they risk losing their own sense of intellectual excitement. Some leave the profession as a result.

Here is where the Council has a vital role to play. Since 1995, thanks to programs produced by the Council and its former affiliate, the Maine Collaborative, some 1,100 Maine teachers have engaged in intense intellectual encounters with distinguished university-level humanities scholars. This represents a small portion of the state's 18,000 teachers, but the ripple effect is palpable. Each participant, for example, teaches an average of about 100 students a year.

Topics have varied, but some basic principles shape each program. Teachers K-12 need to spend time with like-minded colleagues - an especially compelling need in a rural (and, in many places, sparsely populated) state. They need to exchange ideas in a relaxed setting designed to break down hierarchical barriers. They need to grapple with the latest scholarship in their field. They need to read and analyze challenging texts. They need content.

This summer, for example, 21 teachers spent a week at Bowdoin College as part Views of the East: China and Japan in Maine Schools. Co-sponsored with the World Affairs Council of Maine, with funding from a Freeman Foundation grant to the Consortium for Teaching About Asia (administered by the Five College Center for East Asian Studies), this interdisciplinary institute is an example of a national program brought to Maine through the Council's efforts. It was designed for secondary school teachers who are teaching East Asian history, geography, art, religion, or literature this school year. One special feature is a $500 stipend for resources -- teachers are given texts for the institute, plus $300 to chose books or other media for their school's library.

There is an urgent need for programs in Asian studies, a subject much in demand but one in which few Maine teachers have had much preparation. The Council's recent programs have extended in other directions as well - see, for example, articles in this issue on Wesley McNair's poetry seminars.

"This opportunity is like a dream come true," reported one participant at the end of Views of the East. "It validates us as teachers and learners."

"Thank you for treating us like professionals and intellectuals," said another. "It was wonderful to feel my brain stretching again."