How should we teach our future teachers?

How should we teach our future teachers?

There is a lot not known about how we should teach our future teachers. A lot more needs to be implemented that is currently not being implemented in colleges of education. Until we, as a community, acknowledge what we are not doing well and align our work to the needs of the field, while supporting generative growth in teachers, we will continue to be attacked and replaced.

I am not a fan of Teach for America, but I recognize that most programs in schools of education are not satisfactory. I have pushed my colleagues to include classroom management and working with students with special needs into our methods courses, with practical foci, not just the ideas. What we know about learning is that we have to meet students, including preservice and inservice teachers, where they are. We spend so much time trying to get them to appreciate the things we find interesting, when they are worried about things that will matter in classrooms but are often seen as beneath the academy. On the other hand, I don't think expanding the pool of places that can offer quick and dirty programs will be the answer.

We need to sit down and really rethink a lot about teacher education. I do think the university structure that is focused on courses and fitting with the university culture and timeline instead of timelines best made for students to learn to become good teachers is an impediment. If I didn't try to fit a program into a semester system, but just moved between coursework and fieldwork in ways that make more sense for learning a clinical practice, I would be able to do so much more as a teacher educator. Medical schools do not operate on the regular semester calendar, so why should we? We need to be more creative and willing to envision new ways of thinking about teacher education that is not hamstrung by university constraints, as Race to the Top will allow others to do this without us. The handwriting is clear for teacher education, and we should be listening, not just trying to defend the status quo.