Money, Prestige Won’t Affect Aim of This Teacher

When state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig telephoned Neil Anstead last October and told him he had won $25,000 for his outstanding contribution to the education of children in California, Anstead thought the call was a prank.

“Sure, I was surprised,” Anstead said. “When does a teacher get both money and recognition at the same time? We usually get a pat on the back.”

But the voice on the other end of the line really did belong to Honig. Anstead, teacher-administrator at the Grover Cleveland High School Humanities Magnet in Reseda, was one of 12 people to win the California Educator’s Award, sponsored by the Department of Education and financed by the Milken Family Foundation. He earns $44,000 a year and said he probably will invest the cash prize.

“I don’t plan to change my life style because of the $25,000,” he said. “I have a rich life in things that are important to me--ideas, music, art, family and good friends.”

Drop by to Chat

Anstead’s office at Cleveland High School is crammed with art books, magazines, filing cabinets and reports. Art posters cover the walls, and a Xerox machine is in constant use. Teachers and students drop by to collect reprints, gather supplies and chat.

But it is unlikely that such topics as discipline--a typical concern of a public-school administrator--will be discussed. The 53-year-old Anstead is an educational iconoclast and has a distaste for professional shoptalk.

For example, Anstead says he has no interest in statewide educational testing. He learned that his magnet school placed second in the city in the California Achievement test when he read it in The Times.

He also believes in multilevel classrooms instead of grouping children according to scholastic achievement. He thinks the ranking of high schools and colleges is nonsense and believes teaching is the most important job there is.

“It involves the exchange of ideas,” he said. “I’m happy in my profession. I don’t wake up wanting to be a doctor, lawyer, or businessman. Every morning I’m excited about being a teacher.”

Anstead, who has spent his 29-year career with the Los Angeles Unified School District at Cleveland High, became a social studies teacher in 1959 after a stint in the Army. He earned a master’s degree in economics at UCLA in 1969 and later taught that subject. He eventually added art history to his teaching load.

Chance to Stop Decline

In 1981, John Sanders, the former principal of Cleveland High School, offered Anstead, who had never worked in administration, the job of coordinating the proposed magnet school, grades nine through 12.

Anstead, who believes the quality of public education plummeted in the ‘60s and ‘70s, decided an innovative program was an opportunity to stop the decline. Today he is one of the few administrators in the Los Angeles schools who also teaches, filling in for teachers in the magnet program when they need time off to do research.

The humanities program, Anstead’s brainchild, is demanding. Students are taught by a team of four core teachers who determine course content, grades and examination questions. “The teachers must be workaholics, permanent students and team workers,” Anstead said. “They must be prepared to spend evenings, weekends and part of their summers together.”

Anstead stresses that the humanities magnet school is not a gifted program, nor one for an elite group of students. “The humanities have always survived in the upper classes. They always will. That’s not healthy. I’m interested in the survival of the humanities in the middle classes and even more so in the lower classes to enrich lives.”

Jerry Debono, an English teacher in the magnet program, says Anstead is “stimulating, accommodating and protective. He regards you as an individual and pays attention to you. That’s why we like him. He handles extra responsibility with grace.”

Notes of congratulations from officials in education and politics are neatly filed in Anstead’s office. His favorite is from retired custodian Alice McCaldwell. “Imagine, she remembered me. What a fine, hard-working woman.” Her note said:

“Maybe money can make up for all of your overtime. I never met but one other teacher as dedicated as you.”

Attracting New Teachers

The important thing for Anstead is that many of the magnet graduates are excited about learning and some are thinking of becoming teachers. He said five magnet graduates at the University of California, Berkeley, are preparing for academic life.

Anstead says there are 25 graduates of his program at other schools studying to be teachers, including his daughter, Linnea who attends the University of California, Riverside. “They all ask if they can teach here. I’d love that,” he said.

Anstead’s family is well aware of his dedication. His wife, Judith, a substitute teacher, described a December trip, planned before the award was announced, to art museums in Dallas, Houston, New York, Kansas City, Seattle and San Francisco.

It was their first vacation in 10 years. “If I didn’t have the tickets in hand, Neil would have canceled the night before. He always feels there is one more thing that needs to be done at school.”

The business and philanthropic communities have noticed Anstead’s accomplishments. The Los Angeles Educational Partnership, an organization that brings together the school district and private businesses, using Anstead’s program as the prototype, obtained major grants for 13 other humanities programs.

Last summer, UCLA’s Center for Interinstitutional Programs was host to a three-week training program for teachers who want to participate in the new humanities programs. Ruth Mitchell, assistant executive director of the Center at UCLA, called Anstead a role model for other teachers. After watching him teach art history, she said: “He loves learning. He loves his students. He is in command of his field. He illuminates art.”