Preparing Teachers for Urban Settings: Changing Teacher Education by Changing Ourselves - 6 views
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chuxhold on 16 May 12Article abstract: This article explored "the personal and professional changes experienced by a teacher education faculty who embarked on a joint project relating to urban education. The faculty members committed to write book chapters applying their areas of expertise to the challenge of preparing teachers for urban schools." With a qualitative research design, the results showed a detailed description of the staff's "discoveries, thoughts, doubts, and reflections at three points during the project" The study's results revealed "an evolving perspective on urban education focusing upon understanding the lived experiences of the children" as a means of implementing meaningful education for these urban students.
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chuxhold on 16 May 12I think what I'm starting to see is that the essence...is not developing recipes, quick fixes and a how-to-do-it book as much as it is to begin to talk about the need for understanding such issues as passion, resilience, compensatory kind of skills...I'm getting more to the point of talking about what a person takes into the environment...So if we try to just give our students a whole lot of tricks saying this will work and that will work I think we're setting them up for failure. So we've got to try to turn some of their attitude into philosophy and understanding of the urban setting. It's more knowledge and attitude than it is a skill. That's a change. That's not the way I was approaching it (ST, 11/6, pp. 1-2).
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Jenn Renner on 17 May 12I agree that a lack of experiences in urban schools causes hesitation and confusion. I remember going to a school-wide urban education training when I first started teaching in my district. Having some experience with attending and student teaching in an urban school setting, I was astounded by the lack of knowledge of some of my peers. Most of them thought they would be able to build relationships with the students right away and demand their respect. As our student population changed and we gained experience, we became less hesitant and started brainstorming ways to involve our ever-changing community in order to develop better relationships.