FILLED with youthful enthusiasm and altruistic idealism, young education school graduates are embarking on lifelong careers as teachers. However, after only five years, half of these teachers will leave the field for good, having grown disillusioned and disgusted with long hours, low pay, and a bureaucratic mine field. Education students need to be fully aware of the challenge that faces them and where the reward, if any, lies in the teacher’s internal satisfaction. Graduate schools need to acknowledge this problematic trend and, like the Education School, integrate it into part of their teacher education program. Now, more than ever, is a time when we need more competent, patient and passionate educators, not less.
While this is an exciting and rewarding time to be a teacher, the current issues that dominate our system quickly devour the weak, inexperienced teacher. Standardized testing, racial imbalances, unequal educational opportunities, and overcrowded and unsafe schools are problem areas that received the most attention. In addition, education funding cuts, low teacher compensation and the status of the teaching profession in society exacerbate these existing problems. Moreover, teacher salaries vary drastically, from six figure incomes to poverty levels. It is understandable that many professionals flee this turbulent environment, particularly those working in extremely challenging settings, such as in urban, high poverty schools. However, they are simply setting up yet another American education stumbling block, by creating dire nation-wide teacher shortages.
In their commendable effort to fix these teacher shortages, many graduate schools are offering “Fast Track to Teaching” programs that allows the recent graduate as well as career switchers to speed to a modified masters degree in about a year. However, one must wonder if it is only a temporary solution that will ultimately contribute to the teacher shortage. Quality cannot be sacrificed for quantity, and many of these students are losing valuable teacher interaction and feedback with the growing popularity of online education courses. Graduates from these accelerated programs that value speed above all else seem ill prepared to fill the United State’s educational needs. Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the National Union of Teachers in the United Kingdom, is highly opposed to a new six month fast track to teaching program. She says “To bring in an entry route that does not provide a good grounding in theory will not only undermine the status of the profession but will also jeopardise the education of our children and young people.” Fortunately, the education world woes are alleviated to a certain degree by the Education School. This little gem of a school ranks nationally, most recently 31 in US and World Report in 2009.
Education School Dean Robert Pianta said in an e-mail interview, “Curry is a real leader in preparing teachers partly because our students get a lot of hands-on experience in classrooms many semesters before they actually graduate and teach, and they get very close and frequent supervision of their work.” This focus on helping teachers practice taking charge of a classroom, interacting with children and delivering well-prepared instruction is a primary focus of the Curry School. Pianta also notes that the school is working on a program to continue to support graduates after they leave the Education School.
Another way the Education School combats for retention amongst teachers is the very first requisite of the program, a course entitled, “Teaching as a Profession.” In this class students are confronted with the important and varied challenges facing teachers in the classroom: from demanding parents to technology issues to increasing populations of non-native English speaking students. As Prof. Stephen Plaskon says, “After having my students in this class, I know that during their time in the classroom they won’t come to me and say, ‘You didn’t tell me it was going to be this tough.’ Our goal in this class is to expose them to the contemporary issues in the classroom and give them a realistic view of teaching.” Graduate schools should ensure in their introductory courses that they do not unrealistically sugarcoat the teaching profession, but instead present students with the harsh realities.
An additional tactic that the Education School employs that other educational graduate schools should look to adopt is their approach to the student-teaching experience. Though for many schools, this is the final requirement for graduation, the Education School program places students in their student-teaching experience fall of their final year and in the spring of that year they come back to Curry to complete a capstone experience. This project allows the students’ time to reflect on their experience and work with the Curry faculty to use that experience to continue learning. In addition, students take elective courses in areas they’ve identified through their student teaching in which they may need improvement.
Public education is not perfect and may never be. Nevertheless, America’s classrooms need career teaching professionals who strive for perfection in their work, and believe in the possibility of the impossible. The Education School is dedicated to providing America with this next generation of success and results driven teachers.
Kendra Kirk’s column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at k.kirk@cavalierdaily.com.
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