A Multitude of Voices; #7 And #8

Education must be run of the school I've got a job and I when I realize why what I have yeah oh yeah god yeah I am. These are the voices of education I am demanding voices often conflicting voices sometimes shouting to make themselves heard. Our purpose is to listen to a wall after crescendo of sound to endure some of the individuals who make up this multitude of voices. Yeah he was they are a god. The new challenge to the disillusioned. You're hosed. Fred Stone There's a saying in the military that combat is the payoff. It means simply that no matter how rigorous the training a man receives it's only on the battlefield that he can truly become a soldier. Like combat for a soldier student teaching is a kind of trial by fire for a new teacher. It's here for example that a person usually finds out if he really wants to teach. He

discovers the gulf between his ideals and the realities of the classroom. He may also discover that the analogy to the battlefield contains more than a grain of truth. For young women students in Wayne State University's College of Education agreed to talk about their student teaching experiences in the Detroit public schools about the kind of training they've received. The schools in which they've taught and how they see their images as teachers. Only one of the four has had classroom experience other than as a student teacher. While none is a product of a so-called inner city school all of their teaching experience has been in the inner city. One from earlier with teaching however might speculate that their comments would not be markedly different. No matter where their first teaching assignment. Their remarks should be taken for what they are simply spontaneous reactions of young teachers to their initial classroom experiences. Our first question covered a lot of ground.

Did your teaching experience change your attitude toward teaching. To some extent it changed because I had very different classes. I would say in my experience with my seventh grade it changed more I expected more classroom control. Then I found you and I spend and spend much more time on discipline than I thought I would have to do. But my ninth grade would have been what I would consider college prep and in there I felt like I had a more normal classroom atmosphere. I had encountered the same problem my 12 A students were quite noisy. They were slow class and I had quite a bit of trouble keeping them quiet and concentrating on material. My college bound 12 B class was very normal. In fact it was very good. It was what I expected. I think that we probably all meet the same problem because we expect too much when we go into high school which I found was my problem more into a junior high. That you expect so much more of the kids they can and then they can actually produce. And I think this

is one of the things that I learned is that a ninth grader isn't what you remember yourself being as a ninth grader because you really can't remember what you were like when you were in the ninth grade. One of the criticisms of teachers in inner city schools is frequently but they don't challenge students enough that their expectations of what students can accomplish are much too low. How do you react to that. I didn't approach it is like an inner city classroom it just approaches a classroom and kids and. And why are they excited about this because I am and I forgot that they're more interested than in records indoor smoking on the sly and things like that and they are interested in in English or the miracle worker Romeo and Juliet or something like them. And I think that probably many teachers care themselves too low. But I think that I don't think people should do that. I think that they should go in and challenge them but not too far above them. I was a little surprised at the fact that I felt I had to reestablish report with the students every day when I walked into the classroom when I was in high school when a teacher

walked into the classroom after having established respect for himself or herself. The class knew it was time to settle down and get down to the business at hand whereas in my classroom I had to be disciplined every morning for almost half the period before the class would be ready except when I had to say. And it was every day a contest between teacher and student. Compare your recollection of your own schooling with the school in which you taught. I believe from what I observed that where I went to school our books were nicer and newer. We had no complaints about why are you giving me this book it's all torn up been written all over. There is more room for a playground atmosphere for gym classes instead of being outside on the gravel near a busy street that's well traveled and everybody is waving at everybody else who's outside the school there's more outside the school interference more people walking in off the street and complaining or disrupting classes. I think that was one of the most serious

problems students running in and out of the building that couldn't be controlled while the teachers were in classes and we couldn't lock the doors because of fire problems. We had to have students stationed on the fire alarm box in all the halls so that there wouldn't be any more false alarms and we still had one while I was there. I don't even think my situation is comparable because I went to an all girls parochial school and the expectations that nuns place I knew as far as academic level are far different than what you are than what a teacher places a student which is again I think the problem of what I expected them to produce and they did because it was expected of me or I thought it was expected of me. I felt a similar problem because I came from a very academically oriented high school and they had very little in the way of remedial classes this kind of thing in the below average student was left by the wayside because the teachers so enjoyed teaching me about the average student in the majority of the students were.

And I expected I think more academically in the way of my students and I. Then I realized how do you evaluate the quality of the teacher training you received in college prior to student teaching. My 30 15 class which is which is an introduction to the schools was not very good at all for me because I went to an elementary school and I stayed in a primary one class and in my student teaching I taught 12 graders and in my second education class I taught a 9 year old boy so I don't think that the classes I had prior except for the methods class I had were valuable at all because I didn't know what the high school was going to be like when I went back I expected it to be like more or less like what I had gone to and it wasn't method classes are mostly serious anyway and the stories rarely work when you get them out into the school and you try

to use them on your students and you find it's mostly. Hit and miss you know what works for one school probably not work for another so I don't see how the methods classes were really that important you have to go out there and find out for yourself will work. I agree with what they've been saying here especially when you ask in a class about discipline very often we get answers that when you get there you'll know what to do but when you walk in and have to start breaking up fights you don't always function the very first time after the first experience with a fight then you have an idea but the very first time is rough. If you could make changes in the teacher training program what changes would you make. We were talking about changes the other day and there are methods class about that they may change the whole curriculum in 30 15 the they would send you out like a teacher aide and I think that's a very good idea because I believe that my one year teaching under a temporary certificate was the best experience I ever had.

Nobody controlled me and I just sort of did what I wanted to do when I made a lot of mistakes I know that now. But that was the best training I ever had and. When I went to student teach it was much easier for me because I had already been in front of kids and I knew I knew you know what some of the things that would work in some of the things would get them excited and things like that. And I also knew some mistakes not to make already. And so I think that if they institute a program where you go out and you sit around and look and watch and observe in the area where you want to teach you know in Secondary English or wherever it is instead of just going out and observing or tutoring one child that's really good but that doesn't tell you how to control a classroom. Did you receive any really solid satisfactions from your teaching experiences. Basically mine was depressing if you took it day by day but occasionally one a student would pick up a book and read it and refused to do anything up until that point or would want to discuss something with me I would stop after class for a little extra help.

It didn't really make up for all the bad days but it made it more bearable and the few successes were bigger successes because of the general depressing atmosphere. I think that mine was fairly rewarding my faster group in my middle group for I think were satisfied with what I taught them and felt that I had taught them something. However I realized that I didn't get anyplace with the slow group at all. And I guess maybe it's a limitation but I keep thinking that everybody thinks that and who is going to teach the slow kids in you know in the end. But I think I feel the I have the greatest satisfaction with my BA with the best group academically the best group. One of the biggest problems was the morale. It was so low I think the people were all qualified some of them were extremely well qualified they had master's degrees who were going on and they were qualified in their fields. Some felt very discouraged when something happens. If you see

something productive coming out of the school rather than the same old thing going on all the time is this. If there's fights in the cafeteria every day of the week you know that the principal mustn't be effective and or the assistant principal or whatever is in control or if there are fights in the cafeteria and the people that are in there are supposed to be guarding or whatever they're doing ignore them. You know I saw situations like this. You know what do you what can a teacher think they must think boy this goes on all the time that teachers don't care the principal doesn't care. You know what if something productive happens and you know something good some some kid shows something and I don't know how much they can show in a junior high. But you know then then they they might feel as if that's worse I mean they're the teachers with the best feeling toward the school and the students are the ones who taught the advanced classes because they felt they were getting somewhere. The students were enjoying the class they could be motivated. And the teachers came out sometimes with a glow on their face because something so exciting had happened and.

Those are the teachers I felt with the highest morale the rest of them did not seem to care that much. How do you see your role as a teacher. That is when you walk into a classroom close the door and stand before the students what are you really trying to accomplish. Basically motivation I think. Here I am definitely against pouring facts down a child and having him spew back and examinations and then promptly forget about them. I think if you can motivate some kind of interest in whatever it is that you're teaching then the student will go beyond whatever it is that you have taught them. If you teach them Romeo and Juliet and you do a good job with it let's say you bring in West Side Story you take them all down to see it or something like that. They may even get to enjoy Shakespeare and take a few more courses and start reading it Saturday and it's not the kind of thing where you go in and say all right this is what we're going to teach you this is all you're required to now and then they forget it.

I think we should be motivating them to want to go on to learn more to try to get them to want to do something on their own. I think we're there to help lead them in their tastes not to force them into our mold and say this is the way it's going to be. And I'd like for myself to be somewhere in between. The dictator in the room and a friend but I find that's very very hard. I think the teacher should help students to be interested in school rather than just staying there to get a diploma. Help them to learn something because you really can't teach anyone anything unless they want to learn. This is a primary role of teacher. I believe that a teacher should give a child experience. I really thoroughly convinced of this and I think it's very hard to define but I think that motivation is very necessary true but I think that they should not just read poetry they should experience poetry they shouldn't read novels they should experience them and it's a very difficult thing in the sort of nebulous

but that to me is is the role of the teacher making them experience and not making them read or making them do anything but making them experience something the disc worthwhile the disputable for a teacher student teaching is a halfway house. The student teacher is no longer a layman. The jolts and jars of standing before a class of young people quickly see to that. But neither is he or she your career professional teacher. From a vantage point somewhere between layman and professional however the student teacher has a unique perspective from which to view schools teachers students and his own preparation to teach. It's a point of view that ought not to be ignored. So much for teacher training from the perspective of the college student. Next time a different perspective. 3 Wayne State University faculty members discussed some of the problems they encounter in preparing college students to take over urban classrooms. A mounted unit of voices was produced by w d t our Detroit

Public Schools radio. The opinions expressed were those of the participants. This is the national educational radio network. Education must be run of a school was a joy in my when my drill of why. Yeah oh yeah I have yeah I know. Yeah right. These are the voices of education demanding voices often conflicting voices sometimes shouting to make themselves

heard. Our purpose is to listen. To Walter crescendo of sound and hear some of the individuals who make up this multitude of voices go out they are. Now out writing. Teacher Training is it doing the job. Host Fred Schoen. Can a person learn to be a good teacher. Or is teaching an art rather than a science. Most educators would agree that a great teacher is akin to a great artist. His talent is so closely interwoven with his own personality that it can be said to be only incidentally the product of formal instruction. But as a practical matter a great many students need educating. Society cannot afford to realize solely on the relatively few classroom virtuosos. Therefore we have teacher training institutions colleges which exist because of the assumption that ordinary people can learn how to teach. But are

our teacher training institutions preparing teachers for the real challenges of the classroom especially the inner city classroom. How could they be doing a better job. The discussion which follows touches on these questions with three men who are on the inside of teacher training. They are aware of the problems and they have some ideas about how the problems could be solved. Although their comments are directed specifically toward English education many of them are equally valid for other subject areas. The guests are Dr. William Hall with Professor of English education Dr. Henry Maloney associate professor of education and Dr. James Boyer instructor of education all from Wayne State University in talking with a great many teachers common complaint and I'm sure you've heard this is that they're not receiving the kind of training in their colleges of education that prepare them to teach in so-called inner city schools. Could you comment on that. Dr. Morrone.

Well I think one facet of that problem Fred is that we don't have a group of teachers of inner city students as such as a class I taught a course called Literature for adolescents last quarter and of the 23 people in the class not more than six were from schools that would be identified as inner city schools in Detroit. Of those six perhaps four were junior high school teachers into or senior high school teachers. So you have this differentiated audience from our point of view here and of course where we're obliged to serve the various groups although I recognize a great need for training the people who are teaching in the inner city. Dr. Holmes when I broached this question to you a couple of weeks ago you said you're right or they're right. We're not preparing them. What did you mean. Well in general in support of Henry's observation I suspect that no training institution ever trains anybody for the particular situation in which they find innocent.

At the same time we have had experience here in some workshops in which we approximated this thing and we raise a nasty problem of money. We brought in 35 people who are indeed inner city junior high school English teachers who cared. We managed to have three full professorial positions and four instructors one for each six students spend Levon weeks working together in the summer at a total cost of about $70000. Right now in university we are trying to develop a new major and the Road Block we're running into is money money to hire the personnel to provide necessary instruction in reading adolescent literature writing etc. At the present time our graduates are not getting adequate preparation partially because we don't have the resources in the university that we need. Dr. Boyd you want to comment. I would tend to agree generally with what Dr. hü and Dr. Maloney have said. I think one thing

that is obscured here with this question what this concern is that we aren't preparing teachers to go out and teach in the suburbs either. And so when you raise a question of just inner city it really isn't a valid question. A lot of things that we need to do to bring our training program up to meet the needs of all teachers that we're concerned with training. And somehow I suspect that this will require more cooperation between the public schools and the university. Because within the range of facilities available to an instructor here confined to campus I don't see a great deal that we can do to prepare a person to just go out and assume the job. But if I can break in here with an observation based on some long experience here we've always felt that we do a better job in the graduate program at the Master's level because at

that time we have people who know they're going to be teachers who are making careers of it. And to come with some rather specified curiosities about teaching practice at the undergraduate level. The same cannot be said that I could comment on two kinds of problems one we're discussing here is what university might do better. I'm certain that there are many people in university who have good ideas. The more desirable practices but they find themselves frustrated because of lack of budget and lack of power to implement instruction. There's a second range of problems which is the lack of relationship between training institution and the actual laboratory school. Assume now for we have all the money we need to attack the problem of improving teaching to use the best practices and to bring in teachers who are doing successful work and in effect draw on their experiences. It's partly that I think friend it's partly an attitude a desire to

improve techniques. Aspiration to do a better job you have to have this I think in order to to accomplish anything Furthermore there has to be a feeling on the part of the teacher that if he picks up something that's creative and viable more worthwhile an intercity teaching that the school system as represented by the administration in that particular school will find this acceptable and be willing to implement it. If you just take theoretical constructs out into the practical arena and they don't become practical you're kidding yourself. You just go back to the point I made before in this workshop that I referred to. We did take our people into schools to see desirable practice and we brought them into contact with successful teachers who were on our staff. Despite this excellent experience most of those people went out into schools and were unable to implement much of the instruction because of lack of texts lack of supporting faculty and other matters of competition for

resources in the schools. Money is a very large factor in all this I don't think that we lack know how as much as we like power. Let's change it to a different tack here for a moment. All of your teachers how do you try to teach ghouls to your students. In other words when you discuss with them what their goals are going to be when they walk into a classroom how do you encourage them to define those goals. This happens to be irrelevant to what I'm doing in my advanced methods class this quarter and I have charged them with the responsibility of drawing up some kind of image of themselves as English teachers and within the. Framework of certain qualifications I was going to say they wouldn't be terribly concerned. What kind of image that they had as long as it had integrity and these other qualities but it has to be up to date. It has to be relevant. It has to be aware of what's going on today and then within that framework they should decide how they can best personally

become an English teacher. What they can do with that is their thing so to speak. Dr. Olds What about the goals you would teach or encourage people to develop. I'm sure if any of my students were listening they did like to know the answer to. That. I would say fundamentally where we are now in English education. Pick up what you can reach talking about is a resurgence of interest in what is the old English teaching world is concerned with the apparent lack of insight part of many of our students the fact that literature is concerned with knowledge of man's emotional response to experience. It is this kind of concern for what I call the humane tradition that I think is one of the goals were no talking I can bore you for a long time to think about this but I tend to think along the same

lines as Dr. hold. I think the idea now is to to make our prospective teachers aware that they are not learning composition for the sake of composition. And that they should define for themselves why they are going out there to teach young people how to to write better or to read better. And that definition should be a humanistic definition that they are not being sent out to turn out a lot of writing robots or what have you. And this is a very difficult thing to do because all of our students have come through a traditional education that is said subject matter for the sake of subject matter and so so many of them go out in the name of teaching composition and simply demoralize and destroy students day in and day out without ever stopping to ask themselves what is all this for. So I think we have to look beyond the techniques and methods and look at what are some of the ultimate aims of what we are doing in the

classroom. All right one last question and you hinted at answers to this all throughout your other answers. Define for me your ideal of a teacher training institution with specific relation to the inner city or education of inner city students backgrounds. Well ideally I think would be an institution that spends most of its time in the schools and works very directly with the actual classroom teaching practices provides assessment related then to trial practice you know it arrangement. We are not now engaged in that activity. I would suggest that this is the nature of teacher education across the board. And we may come to it are we make a lot of business. That's how strongly I feel about dark Molong I agree it seems to me that it has to be a project run jointly by the university and by the public school system with intermingling a faculty training right on the job on the spot. Just just what Bill is

suggesting. Just to add to that same idea because I do agree we find that we can do much more often with the people who come back for the master's program as pointed out because now they've gone out and they've had a taste of teaching. They are concerned about some real problems and they come back and now we can talk to them where undergraduates they haven't been out they cannot appreciate the problems that we talk about. And so we stand up and lecture to them. Then they have a semester or two of student teaching and no assessment after that to amount to anything and so they go out. Then there are teachers and there's no law that says they have to come back then to assess what they're doing out there so that if somehow we could become involved in the schools to the extent that we have jurisdiction over them so that we can be there to rescue them when they face disaster. Offer them the

support they need when when the going gets so rough that they have the alternative of turning into tyrants or dropping out of the whole thing and so many of them simply turn into tyrants and never become decent teachers when if they had as they have perhaps with a little guidance for the longer time they might get the job done. Let me sum this up you see we need to put our money where our mouth is and we have not done that in teacher training for a hundred fifty years at least. One key to improving teacher education seems to lie in overcoming the notion that a college diploma and a teaching certificate somehow be still on their research and lifetime qualification to teach. According to doctors holy Moloney and boy are teacher training should be an ongoing process. The teacher training institution should maintain a continuous and intimate working relationship with classroom teachers in the schools. As Dr. Boyer put it they had their foreheads with a little guidance for a long time. They might get the job done. As is often the case in education budget problems stand in the way.

I don't think that we lack know how as much as we like power educators at all levels of responsibility frequently lack sufficient money to implement constructive new programs. However this fact scarcely dampens the criticism they face over what is happening right now today in the schools. Among the severest critics in this regard are the student and the next two programs will hear some of the things they have to say about their schools and their teachers amounted to voices was produced by WTT our Detroit Public Schools radio. The opinions expressed were those of the participants. This is the national educational radio network.