Shut up, Jackie Chan!"

That's what students shouted at Danilo Danga when he first arrived in Baltimore, where he teaches at a public middle school. But Mr. Danga isn't from China, as his students' ignorant taunt implied. He's from the Philippines.

So are 600 other Baltimore teachers, who now constitute 10 percent of the city's instructional force. Other districts are hiring teachers from abroad, too, especially from India and China and especially for inner-city schools or hard-to-fill assignments in science and math. Roughly 19,000 foreign nationals currently teach in American public schools, according to a recently released survey by the American Federation of Teachers.

Is that a problem? The AFT thinks it is.

By employing foreigners, the AFT report says, school districts plug holes in their faculties without considering "domestic solutions" (read: American hires) for our teacher shortage. Foreign teachers are subject to abuse by unscrupulous recruiters, who saddle them with enormous fees. Finally, the AFT warns, foreign teachers often face "culture shock" when they get into American classrooms.

But the AFT report is silent about the cultural advantages these teachers can provide. In today's increasingly globalized world, our children need more exposure -- not less -- to diverse peoples and cultures. Instead of eschewing foreign teachers, we should be welcoming them.

Our anxiety about foreign teachers speaks to the deeply parochial way that Americans talk about human differences. If the new teachers in Baltimore were Filipino-Americans -- that is, U.S. citizens with roots in the Philippines -- we would congratulate the city for "diversifying" its faculty. When the teachers actually come from the Philippines, though, everyone starts to wring their hands.

The same thing happened in the 1960s, when President Lyndon B. Johnson called for a "reverse Peace Corps" of 5,000 foreign volunteers to assist in his War on Poverty. Just as Americans helped the needy overseas, Johnson argued, foreign "Volunteers to America" could aid the United States -- especially in its schools.

"We would be shortsighted to confine our vision to the nation's shorelines," Johnson said in his 1966 message to Congress. "We need [foreigners'] special skills and understanding, just as they need ours."

But Congress balked, refusing to authorize Johnson's expansive program. A small pilot project brought 67 teachers from 14 countries into America's schools, where they taught children about their homelands. In Washington, D.C., for example, a Venezuelan volunteer taught Spanish and Latin American geography while a drummer from Ghana gave courses in African music and history.

The idea of a reverse Peace Corps seems to have originated with Ghanaian independence leader Kwame Nkrumah. In 1961, Nkrumah welcomed the first-ever Peace Corps contingent of 51 teachers to Ghana.

But Nkrumah had lived for a decade in the United States, where he obtained a master's degree in education, so he also understood the deficiencies and challenges of American schools.

As Nkrumah discovered, Americans were woefully ignorant about the rest of the world. And what better way to teach them than hiring teachers from overseas?

Meeting with Peace Corps Director Sargent Shriver in 1963, Nkrumah requested more American teachers for Ghana. But he also pledged to send Ghanaian teachers to the United States, if America would accept them.

It never did, except in small numbers.

Today, of course, the number of foreign instructors is much larger. That's because America needs teachers, especially in science and math -- and especially in our inner cities. According to the AFT, 200,000 new teachers have to be hired each year -- 70,000 of them in high-poverty urban districts. The number of American applicants is falling so far short of this mark that many districts offer enticements such as signing bonuses, rent subsidies or generous health-insurance coverage and still have trouble finding enough teachers.

Can we solve this problem simply by hiring foreigners? Of course not.

That's why President Barack Obama has established federal scholarships for Americans who agree to teach in high-need areas after they graduate. He also has offered extra pay for those who instruct science and math.

That's all for the good. At the same time, however, we also should lend a hand to districts that want to hire qualified foreign teachers.

As more and more countries outpace the United States in science and math, these teachers might help us catch up. Best of all, they can also teach our kids something new and important about the larger world.

And that brings us back to Danilo Danga, the Filipino teacher in Baltimore. Confronted by hostile students, he decided to offer them rewards for good behavior. One of the prizes was Filipino chicken adobo, which Mr. Danga cooked himself.

It worked. The students behaved better, which left more time for classroom instruction. And, best of all, they learned a little bit about Mr. Danga's own country and culture.

I doubt anyone calls him Jackie Chan anymore.

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