The teacher wars what are they . Guest im always asked to boil it down and i think weve had the conception in american politics that our educational problems are teachers problems, so we need to start with a new group and turn the page. As i explain in as i explained in the book, the our 3. 4 million american teachers. We hire 100,000 teachers in the school you. There are so many of them. We are so make it to the school. We cannot fire our way to success because theres no method to make sure the people we hire would be any better. We must improve the skill set of the teachers would already have working in our schools. Theres a lot of collaborative practice of weekend used to be that. Host Dana Goldstein is the author. Yes sir Nonfiction Author or book you like to see . Send us an email to booktv at cspan to work. Tweet us at booktv or post on our wall facebook. Com booktv. Now on booktv, christopher hill, he appeared on colorado public radios colorado Matters Program that was recorded in front of an audience at Tattered Cover book store in denver. This is about an hour and a half half. This is colorado matters. Im ryan warner at her chest this time at the Tattered Cover book store is a man who has just had a front seat to history. He has helped shape it. Christopher hill spent 33 years as a diplomat, most recently as u. S. Ambassador to iraq. Hes had wild successes helping broker peace in the balkans, and disappointments. He was this country sleet negotiate and sixparty talks to denuclearize every codec six more party talks to the nook press north korea which did not achieve their goal. He has met things like Mother Teresa and sinners like serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic who died during his trial on genocide charges. Ambassador hill is being of the Joseph Corbett school of International Studies at the university of denver. His new book is called outpost life on the frontlines of american diplomacy and its a fascinating look at both the big picture atreides come section for peace conferences and also the micro, the dilemma of whether to sheikh leaders hand, negotiating a room is decorated of what door to enter through. And lets welcome him. [applause] thank you very much. Thank you. Your father was a diplomat and certainly an inspiration to you. You spent your childhood in places like belgrade yugoslavia where you home was attacked, and portauprince, haiti, where you had to be evacuated. But i think its fair to say that an event occurred on march march 1, 1961. You were eight, that would come to shape your life dramatically. Lets listen to this. Well, i think you are talking we have some audio of this. Here we go. [laughter] i have signed an executive order provided the establishment of the peace corps on a temporary pilot base. This will be a pool of trained men and women sent overseas by the Chinese Government also private institutions and organizations to help Foreign Countries meet the urgent needs of skilled manpower. It will not be easy. Not other men and women will be paid a salary. They will live at the same level as the citizens of the country which they are sent to, doing the same work, eating the same food, speaking the same language. So thats president kennedy on the day that he signed the executive order creating the peace corps which at that time was just a pilot program. And you served in the peace corps traveling to tiny villages on a motorcycle with a hand crank adding machine. Helping local Credit Unions keep the books make reputable loans. That experiences was formative to you. Absolutely. First of all it was my first motorcycle. [laughter] but coming out of college, the opportunity to work kind of on your own and to work with all these people whose life savings, i mean, they were relying on you to make sure their savings were intact. So i had about 28 of these Credit Unions, and so are in these tiny villages and others went in these plantations, and basically i went around checking their books. Where were you . This was a country called cameroon which is just east of nigeria, and i was in the southeast province and i live in a town. So i had a little house there, and every morning i would schlep off to a credit union and see how the books were doing. How different was that experience from what you experienced before in your young life . It was totally different because youre totally on your own. Hasnt a little clip from president to be suggested you werent paid a salary. You were paid a living allowance. When the alert in the peace corps, notwithstanding my wife julie was a nutritionist, you could live on the same meal every single day for two years. [laughter] and manage it quite nicely. Silent on rice and beans for two years. Occasionally Something Else like foofoo or something but rice and beans. It was a kind of good lesson that you dont always have to have Something Different every night. Foofoo is kind of a yam paste. You have to need it and then dip it in a sauce. How i havent had too much since. [laughter] i have been on a foofoo free diet for quite a while now. [laughter] i love the detail in the book that kids in cameroon would rub your skin to see of the white pigment would come up. You know youre in a village in my case i was on a mountain called mount cameroon, what you have to say and colorado was only 13000 feet high. West africa, and i was up there. Occasionally to go to these villages where there would be a little coffee cooperative and people wouldve saved their money off of their coffee receipts but otherwise youd never wouldve left the village or have any sense of who you are or where you were from. They just thought that i was suffering from some kind of skin disease. How often in your career with the Foreign Service e. G. Think back to cameron . Well, quite a lot because first of all i was in college until june. And by july i was in the peace corps. I had entered the peace corps and by the end of august i was off living on my own. I had to get around and i learned responsibility and a way that i never quite understood it before. When people come up to you and say, is everything okay . Is my money there . And to realize that you are it. You are taking care of their money and making sure that their lifes ambitions whether it was to send their kid to school, they needed Credit Union Money on needed savings for that, or buying one of those foot pompously machines or putting corrugated roofing on their house but its huge for them. So the sense of responsibility. And then for me for people who knew about americans, i kind of realized that no one has been different to us but everyone has an opinion about her country and that was a lesson i took to heart. But then the biggest lesson was i had a credit union. A number of Credit Unions, the board of directors basically kind of made off with most of, they had most of the loan money. You had 5 of the members with 50 of the loans. So i raised this with the general membership. It was a big meeting. It was a Tea Plantations of the members were probably twothirds women are so. And so spread out over this meadow and people kept standing up to thank me for bringing to light the fact that this board of directors had kind of misbehavior. And they would in turn to the board of directors shaking her finger you can do this et cetera. So i was a replay is that i pulled this off. No one was panicked. Effect the money wasnt missing but its just that these people had too many loans. And so finally i said, and now i want to present a reform bored and want to proceed with elections. So everyone was very polite and i got my reform board out there. The way they did was not by did was not by actual fans or a valid but they just kind of fold and behind the old board or the reform board and to count heads. Within a couple of seconds i realized the old board one like 90 of the vote after a couple of hapless relatives standing next to their hapless relatives who were my reform board. No one voted for them. Even though theyre very nice people by the way. Some actually spoke english and we put together a great reform board. Absolutely no one you know they didnt get any support for everyone was nice to me about it. I felt totally humiliated. Dont worry, its fun. It was very good what you did. So i took that to mean i didnt have a clue as to who, why people get elected to board of Credit Unions in rural cameroon and who was i to presume that they understood it . Who was i to presume that they understood and, therefore, i could come up with another government and because they all like income and they did like me. I mean they were very grateful for my sort of bring this up. But has learned that just because theyre grateful for bringing this up and telling, saying these people have misbehave didnt mean they wanted to elect other people. It was a different dynamic. We have this view of u. S. , you throw the rascals out. They didnt necessarily have that. And you bet i took that to heart as i went through my for service career. I got very grouchy with americans who think well we dont like the government, we should get rid of it get another government. Not that easy. Lets fastforward a bit. Among the many diplomatic assignments with albanian in 1991 this is not long after the fallthefall of the berlin wall, and he berlin wall, and he is with opening embassies throughout central and eastern europe. This embassy was in a hotel room 215 and the ambassadorial residence was room 216. Thats right. And a week into your service there was only one telephone actually in the room. Sogeti going to be other and to answer the phone. I recover that. A week into your service you meet an ethnic albanian, Mother Teresa. Tell us about the encounter. Well, i was in room 215 and we have a couple i hired a couple of albanian assistance. And one of them was on the phone and said, its a Mother Teresa. And i said Mother Teresa . And i learned not to be surprised. And you have to know about albanian is this a sort of north korea of europe. They been under basically isolate the country from the rest of europe and had been hermetically sealed basically. They had banned religion, banned automobiles, banned everything. Everything that wasnt compulsory was forbidden. So it was kind of a strange place to be, but we were opening our embassy for the First Time Since 1946 when we closed it. So this assistant said to me, its Mother Teresa. So i thought well what a coincidence. Its funny that the same name and the same honor, same name and same title so i got on the phone and introduced myself. Then i recognized the voice. I heard her voice on tv. And she asked if i would come over and discuss whether the embassy could help her store some of the medicines over health clinic, and she had an orphanage as well. So i go over to our little clinic, and there she is its the Mother Teresa. In that sort of circle the veil and everything is kind of wound and she is tiny. And then she asked me if i would do that, and im not going to be the first person in the world to say no to Mother Teresa. But this is one where i will just have to trust in the old aphorism that it is better to beg forgiveness from washington than to ask permission. If i ask permission you could imagine they would have some beating, can we give this to a private Nongovernmental Organization . What about other screw that so i just thought [laughter] so i said yes. Been her assistant said oh could you kind of widened the gate in the back so that we can get our truck in . I said we will talk about that later. You meet her at a plane, a u. S. Military so we are talking and then attachmate this up on the spot because they knew the next a we have an american plane coming in with some mres meals ready to be. In fact, ive been using eating them myself. You could go to the Hotel Restaurant at your peril. So i preferred meals ready to eat. And so i told her we had some food and actually what are they called k. Rations larger cans of peaches and stuff. I said we have some stuff and want to present it to you orphanage or give it your orphanage and if you would not coming out to the airport i would appreciate it if you could receive the first partial. So i go out to the c141 which was of military airlift command, and they had run donovan from usbased in italy, which was a three hour run. This is basically extra food on the gulf war. And so it was a little shorter than the military platform. So this crew from the c141 were based out of mcguire airbase in new jersey, and they all had hispanic names like martinez rodriguez. So i told them to expect a vip because i wasnt 100 sure that Mother Teresa would show up. And so i told them to expect a vip, if they thought i was bringing a Health Minister or something to check out the food. And so a little jeep comes out and its her assistant behind the wheel and Mother Teresa riding shotgun. And she gets out in these guys you know, from acquiring airbase, a drop to their knees cant just drop to their knees at the sight of her. So she walked around giving them these little mud on a figurines, tensions hundred and indents. Chanda does not mention that the pilot who was a woman and she said to the pilot, she said, this is too big to fly. And the c141 pilot said no its not Mother Teresa. We managed to fly in your. We are fine. So Mother Teresa said all the same, i think i better do a prayer for you. [laughter] she gets up in the plane and in that characteristic prayerful mood, she did a prayer on the playing and was able to take off. Theres a picture of you on our website with Mother Teresa at cbr news. Org. That was one of those deals where, you know, i didnt feel like i should turn her into a tourist things i did want to take any pictures of her self. For example there are no pictures of the guys all dropping to their knees and are going around giving the virgin mary medallion. I kind of regret that today, but a point in which you really ought to show a little class sometimes and not, you we didnt have iphones at the time, but i just thought that was the right thing to do. But when she was up in the hatchway of the playing or actually the picture thats in the book is, im standing next to where the pilot and she was looking through the cavernous back, but theres also another picture which was not a good enough quality which has are still away with militarily command insignia next to her as she prays. There are a couple of pictures of the experience. As we said you spent time as a kid in now former yugoslavia. Your first assignment with the state department was belgrade. You served in albania and macedonia. Device to do so you become a real asset in the balkans and that region was torn apart by war, and im taken interested in your meetings with Slobodan Milosevic. He as we said would later be tried for torture and genocide for his role in bosnia and kosovo though he died before the trial ended. Is it hard to negotiate with someone you find israel pulls of the right word . Yet repulsive works. Theres some other words there as well. I mean you know, you look at him and he is someone come he didnt believe in anything by the way. He didnt believe that he wasnt a serb nationalist. He was a communist. He was in anything. He just believed in power for himself. And he used things like serb nationalism to when you go back in history the serbs havent always had an easy time to there are reasons why serbs feel like theyve been oppressed. There are serbs they felt they were the ones who bore the brunt of the ottoman turkish empire. There are serbs who felt that they were, you know when the germans made sure that they have directed land routes to the conquest of greece in world war ii the germans were extremely rough on the serbs as the used land lines down through belgrade. So the serbs have this tremendous sense of victimhood. And like all victims there some truth to the narrative. But the problem was we were in a situation where essentially it was a the Ottoman Empire 100 years delay. The wars in yugoslavia in the 1990s, is basically 1890s balkan wars interrupted by a century of international conflict, International Struggle the two world wars the cold war. So there was this going on and the other peoples in yugoslavia croats slovenes, macedonians, they all felt that yugoslavia was a giant conspiracy that somehow enshrined serb domination but after all the serbs have the capital, they have basically the army, the serbs had the sector please. The serbs kind of ran the place. So theyll have some justification to their own narrative that the serbs were kind of behind everything and they wanted to get out. Meanwhile, the serbs had a few that yugoslavia was a giant contraption to keep down their aspirations. After all, the french had a friend to the germans in germany, and we serbs have oneeighth of this little thing . So the net of office, special in bosnia, where these mr. Zubrow hideous wars where the serbs a centrally controlled the army. Milosevic cynically succumbed people from the main Yugoslav Army to something called the Bosnian Serb Army. Were talking a velcro insignia on their shoulders where something people would emerge as generals in the Bosnian Serb Army went two weeks before they were generals in the Yugoslav Army. So the dynamic of that war and this is one, below so that you fully will which is going on which is if you want to kick samosas out of an area you remember the terrible expression, ethnic cleansing . It was a bosnian thing. Subway to work i dont mean to r