Preparation of teachers

Title

Language

English

Source

Panorama XX (6) June 1968

Year

1968

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

■ The importance of personal values and strong academic discipline must be realized in teacher training. Filipino teachers will find this article stimulating. PREPARATION As one reads the various reports and recommenda tions, one often becomes con fused but also happy to see that educators are not sa tisfied with the status quo but are searching for ways and means of improving teacher education. Teach ing must be looked upon as a discipline with its own structure, key concepts, prin ciples, and generalizations. It is time to look at Koer ner’s following statement as a challenge: “Education as an academic discipline has poor creden tials: Relying on other fields, especially psychology, for its practical substance, it has not yet developed a corpus of knowledge and techniques of sufficient scope and power to warrant the field’s being given full academic status.” In teacher education the question of values is exceed ingly crucial, for it is the prospective teacher who will be given the responsibility OF TEACHERS and the privilege of trans mitting, maintaining, and im proving the best elements of the culture of the country. If he is to be successful in fulfilling this important role in the classroom, he must first have the opportunity in his student teaching to prac tice the professional values related to students and col leagues. The hopes and as pirations for a better world may be most fully realized in the area of human rela tions. It will be one of the means for finding solutions to the many problems of this technological world marked by ideological conflicts, riots, war, crime, delinquency, and hallucinatory drugs. Since society has created these problems, it is up to man to work cooperatively toward solving them. The world is looking to the schools, as an agent of society, to use all its professional knowledge and resources in bringing about solutions. 32 Panorama Probably there has . been no time in the history of teacher education when there has been greater emphasis on the scholarly teacher. Great stress is placed on general education and areas of spe cialization in the various academic disciplines. This is commendable for the teacher of today must have the knowledge and under standing to participate in the intellectual climate of.his profession. It is heartening to see many subject mat ter specialists and college professors becoming increas ingly concerned in the how, the what, and the why we teach, and sharing their ideas with the professional edu cator. Along with this emphasis on the various disciplines has come a downgrading of pro fessional courses. Much of the criticism (against Edu cation) is justified. We have tended, in the past, to make many of the Education courses repetitious. All too often they wqre so far re moved from the classroom that students could not see any relationship. Methods courses and supervision of student teachers have been assigned to professors who have had little or no expe rience in elementary or se=r condary schools. Numbers of teachers take education courses only be cause they will lead to a credential or an increase in salary. No effort is made to apply the knowledge to the classroom. Other teach ers seem to lack the initia tive to try the new. They find it more comfortable to leave the research and the application to someone else. Teach teaching, non-graded classroom, programmed in struction, and television cause feelings of insecurity and fear in many. In addition, many excellent teachers are bound to the old by admi nistrative policies that tend to limit rather than encour age inquiry and research. Regardless of the restrictions and limitations imposed on teachers and the curriculum, how ever, all teachers can contribute to the professional values related to students and colleagues. The soundness and suc cess of any program is de pendent upon the quality of the entire staff — adminis trators, teachers, paraprofes sionals. It is here that pro fessional values must become June 1968 33 the key vdlues as we work with the prospective teacher £nd the beginning teacher. As is generally known, one is not born with a set of va lues, but they are learned. Since values are learned, it is the duty of every teacher to serve as a model or iden tification figure for the edu cation student. The student should be able to see these personal professional values practiced in the classroom, the playground, the teachers’ lounge, faculty meetings, pa rent-teacher conferences, and the community. Consciously and unconsciously the stu dent teacher imitates and identifies with the school persorfnel and particularly the supervising teacher. The student teacher notes the in teraction process' that takes place between student and teacher ’as the effective teacher demonstrates his sin cere respect for the individual child so that the^ student can experience a feeling of self esteem and personal fulfill ment. When concern for others, cooperativeness, creativity, respect for authority flourish in a classroom environment, then there is the potential for high standards of excel lence. Most beginning teach ers and students in educa tion are idealists and have chosen teaching because they consider it one of the truly great professions. It is al ways saddening when all too often they become disillu sioned during student teach ing or the first year of teach ing and leave the profession when they have so much to give the children and youth of our land. The student teacher and the beginning teacher imi tate and identify with the teacher not only in his work with children in the curri cular and co-curricular ac tivities but also in his rela tionships with colleagues. It appears today that there is a needless amount of jeolousy and pettiness existing in school faculties ranging, all the way from the elemen tary school through college. Much of the action is overt, and students are puzzled by the bitterness, vindictiveness, and lack of professional ethics. Soycalled friends are used to gain promotion and then dropped as soon as the goal has been reached. One sometimes gets the impression that many teach ers are more concerned about 34 Panorama their own self-gloritication than the students they teach. Studies that have been made of college students indicate that this lack of interest and concern on the part of their teachers is one of the most critical problems these stu dents face and in many in stances leads tragically to suicide. Student teachers and beginning teachers should have opportunities to witness mutual respect de monstrated among all mem bers of the school staff. Teaching is more than work ing within the confines of a classroom, for it must in clude working with the whole staff in creating a social cli mate that encourages a free exchange of ideas, where one is stimulated to give the best to the youth of this space age,. How easy it is to take the time to stop by a fellow teacher’s door and compli ment him for something he has done. Yet how often does one take the time to do this? Remember that teachers need recognition as much as the children they teach. Then there is the courtesy that one should show the student teacher and the beginning teacher in making them feel welcome when they join a new fa culty. Through example, one must demonstrate to the stu dent teacher that learning cannot end when he gets a degree or a credential but that he must be a student of the times. This includes reading assiduously about current happenings on the local and international scene. The burgeoning of knowl edge forces all to keep abreast of the research and clinical studies being done and then to be willing to modify methods and tech niques to meet the needs of the modem emerging socie ty. Teachers must cultivate a sincere respect for new ideas; show that they know the major modes of inquiry; and indicate a willingness to participate in the profes sional activities that will im prove the process of teaching and learning. — By Florence Schmidt in The Delta Kappa Gariima Bulletin, Spring 1968. June 1968 35

pages

32-35

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