Are you looking for a little adventure this year? If so, a California teacher may have just the answer.
H. Clyde Hostetter, a faculty member at California Polytechnic State University, says he discovered on a recent trip to England that many teachers there would like to exchange homes with Americans for a month or more. The problem is making contact.
Now, with the help of a microcomputer in his home, Mr. Hostetter is organizing a free directory service open to all teachers here and in England. The directory will be available in April to major university libraries and high schools in the U.S. for $25, and at 45 sites in England, including Oxford and Cambridge Universities, he says.
American teachers can also use the service to exchange homes within the U.S., Mr. Hostetter notes.
Already dozens of inquiries have come in from England and California in response to press anouncements, he says. Two-thirds of the writers are at the secondary-school level and one-third are at the college level.
“These people have a little adventure in their souls,” Mr. Hostetter says.
For further information, send a self\addressed, stamped envelope before March 1 to Mr. Hostetter at 48 Los Palos Drive, San Luis Obispo, Calif. 93401.
Those with an even bigger appetite for adventure may want to consider a whole school year away from home.
Tennessee educators are experimenting with that novel idea. Teachers from different states can swap classrooms--and even houses and cars--if they can find an exchange family of the same size in their adopted state.
The idea stems from the Tennesseans’ concern about “instructional stagnation.” Members of the state’s curriculum-development association noticed that turnover was down to an unusual 5 percent among teachers, and that school boards faced increasing pressure from their communities to hire local residents.
Association members believe it is time to infuse new blood.
“We think we can learn a lot from teachers from other states,” says Howard McNeese, the state’s deputy education commissioner.
And so Tennessee has decided to try a pilot exchange program in the fall of 1983, the first program of its kind in the country, officials say. Letters went out to all the states inviting them to participate in a “National Teacher Exchange Program,” and five--Iowa, Connecticut, Massachusetts, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania--quickly jumped at the idea. Others said they might join later.
Interested teachers in those states should apply to the National Teacher Exchange Program through their local school boards before March 5.
For the last few years, say members of the Syracuse Teachers Association, they have seen alcohol and drug-abuse problems increase among school staff members. Too often, these problems have led to disci-pline problems and public humiliation, they say.
To help these colleagues, the sta has launched an employee-assistance plan that members believe will not only offer aid but insure confidentiality along the way.
Any staff member of the district who thinks he or she has a problem with alcohol or drugs may meet confidentially with the district’s head nurse, Constance S. Palumb, who has been designated program coordinator. Ms. Palumb has spent several months setting up referral contacts in the Syracuse area, says Executive Director Richard S. Kassman of the sta Professional counseling in other areas is also offered, he adds, and the association has arranged health-insurance coverage for some types of treatment.
“We’re hoping that by providing this confidential route, people will come forward and say, ‘I need help,’ Mr. Kassman says. The program began in December and is similar to several others in New York State school districts.
A new publication for high-school students is offering what appears to be the rarest of opportunities for a few ambitious student journalists--a real job.
Highwire, a slick-looking magazine of about 80 pages written primarily by students, is offering 6-to-12-month paid internships for student writers who want to take a year’s break between high school and college.
The Highwire project was launched about two years ago by two Harvard University graduates in a renovated textile mill in Lowell, Mass. Today, the magazine has a paid circulation of 35,000 and a student editorial staff of about eight, says Pamela Winston, an editorial assistant with the publication.
Interns working full time will earn $600 a month. Student freelancers are paid up to $250 per article. Writers from Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and other Western states are especially needed. For more information, teachers may write to Pamela Winston at Highwire, 217 Jackson Street, P.O. Box 948, Lowell, Mass. 01853.
Excepting the curricular areas in which teachers are scarce, most school districts no longer search far and wide for new teachers.
But in Florida, a state still growing, the Pinellas County School Board sends its recruiting officers out each December to hire as many as 35 new teachers. Though the board may have no job openings at the time, there will be sure to be some the following fall, says Jerry J. Switts, a placement official.
The recruiters fan out through neighboring states, prepared to sign on new teachers right on college campuses. “We have our contracts in our hands,” Mr. Switts says.
The main focus of the effort is minority teachers, but science and mathematics faculty and speech-therapy specialists are frequent recruits also, Mr. Switts says.
A National Education Association spokeman said that “advance-contract” recruiting is unusual these days; most states have a teacher surplus.--ha
