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Written by Mark Sass on Jan 8th, 2012. | Copyright © EdNewsColorado.org
You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “Commentary: New paradigm needed for teacher training”.
Mark hits the nail on the head. Typically when I am asked what one area of focus would do the most to improve the education system, I say it is the front end of the teaching profession: recruitment and training. While much of the focus is currently centered on trying to get poor performing teachers out of the classroom, it presupposes there is a well-spring of adequately prepared, talented individuals waiting in the wings to replace them. I don’t think this is currently the case.
With all of the push to reform education, way too few people are pushing to revolutionize the way we train teachers. It is a very fair criticism of Teach for America, of which I am product, and many other teacher prep programs. I also taught with many teachers that went through traditional colleges of education that would openly admit that they felt completely unprepared their first year as well. It is a problem. It might also help slow the current turn and burn of new teachers that leave the profession (Currently 46% leave in the first 5 years at a cost of $7 Billion nationally to school districts http://is.gd/ptn5II ).
Fortunately, as Mark points out, their is a relatively easy solution. It doesn’t require reinventing the wheel. Simply look to other technical, skilled professions like mechanics, engineers, doctors, etc. and see how they do it. You don’t hand someone a text book and then send them into an operating room, scalpel in hand. I hope more people recognize the need to overhaul the way we recruit and train our incoming teachers. It can really move the needle for the profession, and for students.
Mark has it right. But checkout the teacher education programs at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, Georgia. They are field based and are outstanding. After five years 90% of its graduates are still teaching as compared to the national average of 50%.;
Very briefly, future doctors are required to do years of training to do what they do. Should it be any different when it comes to teachers…….not really. They are spending time with our children and young people, it seems like they should have the best training possible. The idea of cutting back on education is ludicrous. We should be spending more money on Education than we do on the military. Thank God we have the opportunities to either teach or be taught. There are students and teachers in Iran that don’t have that right. In fact, the teachers are being put in prison! What is the crime? Their religion. They are Baha’is.
Great idea. Trouble is, many school districts will not sign on to full-year residencies. A few years ago all teacher-education programs in my state (NY) were compelled to re-register their programs, and at that time I proposed a full-year model. Local districts made it abundantly clear that they would not accept our students for a longer period. I’m sure test preparation had much to do with this refusal.
Thank you, Mark, for being a much needed, intelligent teacher voice in the “reform” movement and a refreshing change from limiting reform to weeding out ‘bad teachers’!
I’d like to point out a few PERSONAL perspectives from a higher education/educational psychology platform. These do not officially represent any single university program.
1. “Good theoretical grounding” NOW DOES INCLUDE how to ensure “all students learn at high levels.” We can celebrate this positive change in teacher ed. since you and I went through teacher training (mine in the seventies, yours over 17 years ago?).
2. We can celebrate districts that direct money toward keeping their faculties up to date about the best teaching practices with ongoing training. You and I need to supplement our earlier training (you obviously have), as does every teacher ed. graduate!
3. We can celebrate knowledge of research-based best practices for increased learning: provide feedback that is clear, immediate, frequent, and specific. We know this applies to young students as well as adults.
We know this feedback must come from teachers/mentors who are proven to be knowledgeable in their fields.
4. We can celebrate districts like Cherry Creek that have negotiated ongoing, first-year teacher mentor programs where master teachers are released full-time and paired one-on-one for an entire year to give support and feedback. This is the only proven way to “mentor” those already hired to be effective and to last past five years.
5. The media and popular rhetoric often IGNORES WHAT OUR PEDAGOGY ALREADY KNOWS is effective for increasing students’ achievement at every age and in every discipline.
6. We can celebrate local universities (you mentioned CU Denver and there is Metro State, too, and others) that OFTEN OFFER OVER 200 HOURS OF FIELD EXPERIENCE BEFORE student teaching.
7. Tuition for students at state universities has risen as much as 20 to 30% recently because of loss of state funding. And, because of multimillion-dollar losses in k-12 education funding, wonderful and effective mentorships and intern programs are more UNLIKELY than ever. (Thank goodness for the (although limited) nonprofit help you point out.)
Thank you for helping spread the informed “word” in every forum possible.
In line with the SBPS program, Friends’ School in Boulder also offers a teacher training program, a year long intensive experience to obtain a CO teaching license, learn from master teachers, and surround oneself with the support of fellow apprentices, teachers and experts in education. I am a graduate of this amazing program.. and can’t imagine starting my teaching career in any other way.
http://www.friendsschoolboulder.org/teacher-preparation-program