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chuxhold

Preparing Teachers for Urban Settings: Changing Teacher Education by Changing Ourselves - 6 views

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    Article 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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    Many faculty members felt keenly the responsibility to educate these preservice teachers about the challenges of urban education: - "[We have a] responsibility to meet the needs of the children in urban schools...[My goal is] to steer the initiative home so that we can say that, my goodness, we really are better able now to prepare our students to work in those kind of environments" (RP, 8/12, p. 4). - "I think it's the teacher's professional obligation to find a way to reach whatever children they are working with" (CC, 8/26, p. 2). - "I think preservice teachers need to know the difference between urban school settings and suburban and rural school settings and they need to be prepared for those differences in their teaching...I think most of all the project is helping me gain a better insight into those differences which will affect how I teach my students..." (TG, 11/6, p. 1).
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    The qualitative study found that teachers demonstrated both commitment and excitement. However, these educators were faced with hesitation and confusion, "because of the lack of personal or professional experiences in urban schools, the complexity of the issue, and/or the cohesiveness of the [study's] book"
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    I 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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    I 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.
chuxhold

Miss Grundy Was Fired Today - 4 views

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    The traditional, patronizing view of teachers, that they are to be treated like saints and paid as if they'd taken a vow of poverty, has lately gone through a schizophrenic inversion. Open the newspaper most any day and you'll read about "bad teachers" who are holding children back and, through their unions, conspiring to remain well compensated.
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    It does seem that teachers are constantly in a negative light in the media these days. I like this quote from the article, "Until fairly recently, everyone took it for granted that parents, educators, and communities shared the responsibility for schooling children, and presumed that outcomes were the product of a complex web of circumstances. Now the calculus has been narrowed to a single variable, the instructors, who are offered all the credit and shoulder all the blame." It seems most of the discussion surrounding school reform centers on teachers vs. reformers and nothing else. Even Kennedy only focused on the happenings inside the classroom to explain reform failure. While I do think teachers are a HUGE part of the reform movement, there are a lot of other people who could be involved as well.
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    I have to agree that school reform involves a lot of key players inside and outside of the classroom. Kennedy mentioned throughout her text this notion. I liked how she mentioned that teachers feel a lot pressure from within their own schools and by their teammates. During our professional development meetings, I can see the gears going amongst my colleagues as we are listening about RISE, SLO, and even the many other acronyms of RISE. They are feeling the pressure to develop realistic but achieveable objectives. Third-fifth grade teachers are beginning to look combative towards the primary grades as the younger grades don't have the pressure of ISTEP. However, K-2nd grade teachers have the pressure of preparing these students early so they CAN pass ISTEP. It seems like this could be a vicious cycle and it's only in the beginning stages. I think it would be more of a relief for teachers if they had that reassurance and support from districts, government, and other reformers - instead of feeling the pressures and responsibilities within the school walls.
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    When I read this article it reminds me of Mr. Kimberly from the Kennedy book. Here is a man who I think the public is percieving to be a "bad teacher" because he takes no accountability and still wants to be compensated for his work. I think when public perception is that most people are like him, then it is understandable why there would be anti union movement. If people feel like the union is the only reason why the Mr. Kimberlys are around then I see why they want to disband them. From the other side though, there are a lot of hard working teachers who hold themselves accountable and there is nothing wrong with trying to get as much compensation as they can. Like any profession there is a business aspect to everything. Another issue that builds animosity is that there is a large number of non-teachers who think they know what teaching is like and think it should be easy, but have never dealt with the daily issues that arise from a teacher standpoint. We all think that since we were once students we know what teaching is like, but being a student and being a teacher are two different worlds.
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