What we found at our WINGS after school programs in Charleston, S.C., is that training college students to teach social and emotional skills to children also gives them the tools to motivate themselves and others. Also empowering is their understanding of how they can make a profound difference in the lives of others.

Research shows that social and emotional learning strengthens attachment to school and makes children more effective learners. These same skills also can give their teachers the power to maximize their impact upon the children they serve.

So, I acknowledge there may be more literal flexibility than what is practiced, but the practices build up for a reason. The other issue is that often courses like educational psychology are the only undergraduate courses the ed psych department offers, so they fight to hold on to them for their own ends. But again, that is outside the purview of my group. The same is true at my institution for other “foundations” courses like history of education or education and society.

EdWeek, Published: September 8, 2004. Susan Tave Zelman, the Ohio superintendent of public instruction, announced the state’s first “charter education schools” last month….

Wright St and Mt. St. Josephs.

Anyone know what happened?

If it were up to me, I would frame almost everything as content area methods courses, and teach the other information embedded in the methods classes. Differentiation is not generic, and should be taught within the mathematics or reading methods course, since it will look different in each of those courses. Same with education and society, since it is different for different subject areas. For example, algebra for all is a recent (in the past 15 years) phenomenon whereas literacy for all is a much older requirement of schooling. So, I’d do away with the non-subject specific courses for all middle and high school teachers and build the ideas and knowledge into the subject methods courses and have 6-8 of them that narrowly focus on even smaller issues and aspects of the content areas (e.g., Algebra, Geometry or US History, world history). I’d add child development for early childhood teachers.

My final gripe is that one of the things that not having a real career path for teachers creates is this feeling you have to teach everything in their education program because I have no idea what my teachers will see when they leave. They may end up in a school that has a great program of professional development, but most don’t. So there is pressure to prepare not just for the first couple of years, but for the rest of their careers since my mathematics methods courses might be the last time they see a subject specific course that is of a long enough duration and intensive enough to ever make a difference. I’d be better able to focus is I knew, like in medicine, that the continuing education was actually going to be focused and relevant.

I agree with the idea of restructuring the ed school curriculum, starting with nuts-and-bolts, then fading into more theory. Some basic ed psychology should be presented early, but only in relation to practice. I think that it would be helpful for ed schools to take an approach similar to med schools (with early coursework, then rotations, then residency) rather than take an approach that separates the theory from practice. Teacher reflection definitely needs to be a major part of the curriculum.

I think ed schools should also think about how to extend teacher participation in school research after certification is obtained. This could be part of a MA/PhD program that focuses on theory once teachers have had time (2-3 years) to get their ‘nuts-and-bolts’ under control and start thinking about how they can continually evolve as a teacher. (Full disclosure: I’m a full-time student in a PhD program in science ed.)

@LBH: Ditto. I think this is at the heart of the TFA curriculum, and should be for all ed schools.

@Andrew Bell: Yes, TFA tries to recruit English majors to teach English and science majors to teach science, but this isn’t always the case due to openings in particular regions. I’ve definitely heard of sociology majors teaching math in TFA, but usually due to logistical contraints.

@Gideon: (1) there are already plenty of teacher standards put out by teacher professional organizations (NSTA and NCTM come to mind), and (2) different teachers have different needs based on their teaching situations. I’m not sure that more standards will help the situation.

I spent two years of night/summer classes learning about curriculum, child psychology, modes of understanding, etc. But what I really could have used was training: how to deal with disruptive behavior, handle a fire drill, run a parent conference, etc.

I suppose the logic was that we’d learn this all in our schools – and we did, but only through trial and error. I think our schools – at least mine – assumed that we’d learn all this at ed school.

Police recruits receive practical training with various scenarios – it builds a reflex on which to rely when the real thing happens. I wish teaching programs would incorporate the same mode of training into their degree programs.