In 1851, our university was not the Duke as we now know it. No Mean Gene's. No voice mail. Not even any basketball. The institution was known as Normal College, and served the purpose of training teachers. Inevitably, a lot has changed in almost 150 years, and these days it seems that every Duke graduate goes on to become either an investment banker or a consultant. The teachers that emerge from these hallowed halls appears few and far between. But there still remains a place on this campus dedicated to the specific mission of Normal College. Its unassuming headquarters are on the second floor of the West Duke building on East Campus, the office of the Program in Education.
Offering what full-time faculty member David Malone describes as a "niche" apart from more traditional Duke endeavors, the program provides skill-sharpening opportunities to students who enjoy working with children and contributing to the community.
The dearth of qualified teachers in our country today is national news-last July, the press reported that half of new teachers in Massachusetts could not pass a basic skills test. So perhaps it comes as no surprise that the program's track record in placing Duke graduates is stellar. According to Jan Riggsbee, a full-time faculty member of the program, all students participating in the elementary and secondary programs get teaching placements right out of college. To help place students, the program works with the Career Development Center to arrange on-campus visits from school systems for recruiting purposes, just as they do for those students who dream of investment banking.
"Students as talented as Duke undergraduates who want to be teachers should be teachers," says David Goldstein, director of the program in education. He adds that because teaching is such a low-paid and often little-respected job, even students who want to go into the career may end up with obstacles in their way, such as arguing with parents who say things to the effect of, "I didn't pay $100,000 for a Duke education for you to be a teacher."
Trinity senior Laurie Karp, agrees that some prospective teachers may encounter this attitude from friends or family. The biases that she encountered while working towards her certificate in the secondary school preparation program, however, have been of a different kind: "My parents have always been really supportive, but it's taken me four years to realize that I'm going into education because I am ambitious and not despite it."
While students must come to terms with internal barriers on their own, the Program in Education does its part to make it a little easier for students to hurdle their external obstacles. By offering three different programs-a Secondary Teacher Preparation Program and an Elementary Teacher Preparation Program, both of which culminate with teaching certification, and an Early Childhood Education Studies Certificate, which provides experience working in childcare centers and preschools-it gives interested students the opportunity to explore different options in the field of education. Students apply to the program in the fall of their junior year and are accepted by the spring semester. In addition to required education courses and a number of other broad requirements, students must complete a semester of student teaching their senior year. At the beginning of this semester, participants take two education classes in a concentrated form and then spend the rest of the semester solely in a classroom of one of the local "model schools," where they gradually work up to teaching the class. Before being allowed to student teach, students must take the standardized Practice I test, which ensures they have a grasp of basic skills. In the spring of their senior year students take the harder Practice II test which is a final step in the certification process.
The rigorous student-teaching component of the program, though challenging and intimidating at first, allows students to discover teaching methods and apply what they have learned to children. Several students describe the experience as daunting and even Goldstein says "those first weeks in front of a class, it's very intimidating," but all agree it's rewarding to put into practice what they have learned and to get hands-on experience in the classroom.
"Teaching is definitely something that needs to be practiced," says Trinity senior Bill Wagner, a participant in the secondary preparation program.
Trinity senior Aileen Haggerty, who is going through the elementary program and is currently student teaching in a second and third grade class at E.K. Powe Elementary school, says she loves the experience of being in the classroom, but adds that her 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule is draining. "It's just a lot of time," she says. "It's not what I'm used to at Duke."
With only 10 students in the secondary school program, 18 in the elementary program and six in the Early Childhood program, the Program in Education is extremely small in comparison to other certificates at Duke, such as Markets and Management. But, says Goldstein, with only five full-time faculty members the program is as big as it can get right now without sacrificing the amount of attention given to individual participants, especially during their semster of student teaching. In the future, Goldstein says he would like to see the program grow to accommodate demand, adding this won't be able to happen unless more faculty comes aboard.
Nevertheless, Program in Education faculty members have already brainstormed more ways to make the program more accessible to a greater number of students. Specifically, Malone says, the program is looking into developing another certificate that would focus on educational issues and studies. This certificate could be tailored to one's field of interest, such as psychology, sociology or anthropology for those students interested in education without the time for the student-teaching component.
The uniqueness of Duke's program comes not in its small size, however, but in its content, says Goldstein. He estimates that less than half of the other 15 or 20 universities in the top tier have as comprehensive an education program as Duke's. And while teacher's colleges and comparable programs at other universities often focus on the nuts and bolts of teaching-concentrating heavily on methodology-Duke's program tries to ensure that students graduate with a mastery of a particular subject and a liberal education. This works to combat the problem of teachers having little content knowledge in the field they are teaching, Goldstein says, which is an oft-heard criticism of the educational system today. Indeed, according to an article in the Boston Globe this summer, a 1996 report found that one-quarter of all high school teachers have not taken a class in the subjects they teach since they were in high school.
This mastery is ensured by a fairly extensive set of requirements. In addition to fulfilling Duke's general curriculum requirements, participants must take a number of classes that relate to education and the particular subject in which they are specializing.
"The fact that you need to fulfill a major and then have a whole bunch of requirements means you have to start early," says Karp.
Trinity senior Nikki Laird, also a participant in the secondary school program, adds that she has only had time to take one free course-that is, one that is not going toward her major or the education certificate-since she started working to fulfill her requirements.
Wagner says that although he is a little disappointed that the large number of course required for the program results only in a certificate, he admits that it has forced him to take classes such as Advertising and Society that he wouldn't otherwise have taken but has enjoyed nonetheless.
Until the early 1980's, Duke actually did have an education department and offered the option of a major in education. However, the University scaled down the department into a certificate program due to financial cuts, allowing only tenured professors in the department to stay.
Despite these cutbacks, the program in education still offers about ten classes a semester covering such diverse topics as Educational Psychology, Computers and Society and Literacy and Photography, which are not just limited to students working to earn one of the education certificates. These classes often require field work, such as tutoring local school children, to make learning more three-dimensional and pertinent to life outside the classroom. Goldstein cites the popularity of Education 100: Foundations in Education and Dean Sue Wasiolek's Legal Issues in Education as proof that education classes don't only teach teaching. These courses give students a better awareness of educational policy issues, help them become more informed citizens, and even bestows them with knowledge that they will use as parents.
Additionally, education courses help prepare students who are going to participate in other teaching programs, such as Teach for America and the Peace Corps. While one might surmise the Program in Education would be in competition with these alternative teaching programs, they actually have a good working relationship, says Riggsbee. In fact, she notes, another section of an education class was added last year for the benefit of students planning on participating in these specific programs.
Some students see the Program in Education as having certain advantages over Teach for America. For example, Wagner says he feels Duke's program provides a more comprehensive view of the issues that surround education and better experience in the form of student-teaching, as opposed to Teach for America which "trains you quickly and puts you out in the field."
"A lot of teachers just focus on daily grunt work but don't think about education as a concept, the process of education," says
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