Time, for a Change
Rethinking Graduate Teacher Education
There is a Buddhist saying about control: If you want to keep a cow, give it a large pasture. The implication is, those with more freedom tend to stay put. State departments of education would be well advised to integrate some Buddhist philosophy into their approach to school reform, particularly in the way they address the issue of graduate teacher education. As a faculty member in the education department of a small liberal-arts college in New York state, I have stories to tell about what happens when you limit the way teachers learn and grow.
Let me tell you about Beth. Beth is a first-year 5th grade teacher. She’s also a full-time graduate student in the literacy education master’s-degree program at the college where I teach. If all goes well, Beth will earn her graduate degree in the spring of 2005, just two years after enrolling in the program. In order to graduate “on schedule,” she will need to complete two graduate courses a term for four terms, take a six-week seminar during the first summer of her enrollment in our program, and complete a six-week practicum in her final summer. Did I mention that Beth is a first-year teacher?
Why would anyone do this to herself? The answer, in New York state, is easy: Because she’s required to. All new teachers must have earned a master’s degree within three years of their first teaching appointment, according to new state regulations. The repercussions are already being felt on our campus. While it’s typical to hear veteran teachers who take our graduate classes lament the sacrifices they’re making in terms of their teaching, learning, and, often, their family lives, we dread the consequences recent state standards will have on new teachers’ thinking and teaching. We’re trying to be open-minded. Our department is familiar with the research that says teachers’ beliefs and practices are most susceptible to change in the first five years of their careers. Yet, the situation is complicated by the reality of the nontenured teacher’s life. Many are excited about learning, yet they feel limited in the way they can use their new knowledge to encourage pedagogical change in their schools....
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