David M. Steiner ricochets from one media device to another in a classroom here, coaxing his two dozen students through a lecture on Plato with jottings in English and ancient Greek, a map of post-Classical Athens, and a stick-figure diagram of the philosopher鈥檚 famous cave allegory.
It鈥檚 not your usual Saturday-morning fare, especially for these students, who Monday through Friday put in long hours as teachers themselves. They have come to education school for the day. As the pilot group for a new program being devised by their charter school employers and Hunter, they expect to earn master鈥檚 degrees in elementary education down the road.
鈥淥ur single largest challenge is 鈥� people, the challenges around human capital,鈥� said Norman Atkins, the chief executive officer of Uncommon Schools, one of the three charter-management organizations behind the venture.
To recruit, keep, and improve the best people, he said, the three groups needed to come up with a better way for their busy teachers to earn the provisional certification and later the master鈥檚 degree required by New York state. , in New York City, and are confident that such a program will have broad appeal in this city, and envision admitting some 500 students a year in 2011 to the two-year program. Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein has blessed the plan.
The venture, tentatively called Teacher YOU Training Institute, follows other efforts germinated outside universities to boost the power of teacher preparation. The High Tech High charter-management organization in San Diego has notably started its own teacher-licensing program and will soon grant master鈥檚 degrees, for instance.
True Collaboration
What sets the New York institute apart is the close collaboration between the entrepreneurial groups and Hunter College, the City University of New York鈥檚 premier teacher-preparation school. And, it might be said, the involvement of Mr. Steiner, the school鈥檚 dean and a scholar known for his cutting criticisms of the teacher-training status quo.
Five years ago, as an education professor at Boston University, Mr. Steiner unleashed a minor tempest with a study of the coursework required for aspiring teachers at 16 leading education schools. He concluded that it was mostly 鈥渋ntellectually barren,鈥� often ideologically skewed to the left of center, and just not very useful in the classroom.
The Hunter dean now has a chance to show how it should be done. According to his collaborators, who said they approached just about every university with a teacher-preparation program in the New York metropolitan area, he singularly embraced the new approach.
鈥淚t was hard to find a partner,鈥� David Levin, who heads the KIPP charter schools in New York City and helped found the Knowledge Is Power Program, told the students when they started the teacher-training program this past summer. 鈥淭hey either said, 鈥楧o it all yourself,鈥� or they wanted to control it.鈥� Only Mr. Steiner was willing to make the project a true collaboration, the KIPP leader said.
It鈥檚 Hunter鈥檚 gain to work with schools 鈥渢hat have among the best performance in the city,鈥� offered the dean, who decided to teach the Foundations of Education course himself鈥攈is first go at it in seven years.
That course and the 10 others required by the state are being 鈥渞edesigned from scratch,鈥� say the institute鈥檚 leaders, to fit the needs of teachers in the high-expectations climate of the three charter groups, which together run more than two dozen schools serving children from low-income families in New York and other Northeastern cities.
The courses will be co-taught by charter school staff members and Hunter faculty. Three chairs of Hunter education departments were involved in the two courses completed over the summer and fall, one on the 鈥渁rt and science鈥� of teaching and the other on child development.
鈥淭he basic goal is to combine the best of practice with the best of theory,鈥� Mr. Levin said.
The teaching course included such in-the-trenches advice as how to distribute and collect papers in the least time possible (along with an analysis of the resources saved, such as 67 hours of teaching time in a year) and how to use disciplinary measures fairly and effectively.
The foundations course is, by design, heavy on theory. But the theory is meant to help students judge for themselves the educational issues of the day鈥攚ithout resorting to facile good-guy-vs.-bad-guy schemes.
Back in the Hunter classroom, the dean is asking the students to imagine in real life the kind of dialogue Plato saw as a means to uncovering deeper understanding. In groups of four, they are scripting conversations between an adult and a child after the child notices a sign at an entrance to a park that reads, 鈥淣o Vehicles Allowed.鈥�
鈥淢ove as far as you can to a deeper conception of what that鈥檚 about,鈥� he instructs.
And they do, constructing questions that bring out the definition of 鈥渧ehicle,鈥� the purpose of parks, the rights of individuals and the collectivity, and, ultimately, the shortcomings of the rule.
As the afternoon goes on, Mr. Steiner, who studied politics and philosophy at Oxford and Harvard, seems to overflow with ways long-dead Plato can speak to the teachers occasionally fidgeting in their chairs. Would the philosopher, he asks, countenance the image of teaching as pouring stuff into kids鈥� heads? Not at all, he contends. On the other hand, Plato was certainly a 鈥渟age on the stage,鈥� not the 鈥済uide on the side鈥� often commended to aspiring teachers in education schools.
鈥淓ducation is about the exemplar,鈥� Mr. Steiner advises before rushing to his next point.
鈥楽耻辫别谤辫谤补肠迟颈肠补濒鈥�
Suzanne Vera, a music teacher at the Leadership Preparatory Charter School, said she enrolled in the institute in part to get ready to move from her current teaching specialty to a primary classroom. With seven years of school experience, she is also trying to figure out her own best future as an educator.
鈥淚t鈥檚 important to me to make sense of what I鈥檓 doing, where I鈥檇 like to work, and what kind of organization I鈥檇 like to align myself with,鈥� she said. At the same time, graduate school elsewhere seemed to offer 鈥渘othing practical, and this is superpractical.鈥�
Besides being tailored to hours available to the teachers, the program is almost free, thanks to an arrangement that the institute has made with AmeriCorps, the federal program for putting young people to work in community service.
Josh Falk, who at the age of 32 made a career switch from lawyer to teacher, called the program 鈥渁 good deal.鈥� Mr. Falk, who teaches 2nd grade at the Achievement First East New York Charter School, earned the provisional teaching certificate he needed after enrolling in the institute鈥檚 program, which included a week of study in the summer.
鈥淚t鈥檚 much more collaborative than a lot of higher ed,鈥� he said of the institute. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of discussion between students and teachers.鈥�
Reflecting the results-oriented, data-driven nature of the three organizations鈥� schools, the institute鈥檚 leaders plan to make the final condition of earning a degree proof that the teachers鈥� students have grown academically.
鈥淲e鈥檙e developing standards of student-learning gains,鈥� Mr. Atkins of Uncommon Schools said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e looking for meaningful data that students 鈥� are learning.鈥�
All three groups have plans to expand the number of schools they operate, and their vision for the new teacher education program also calls for significant growth.
In addition to teachers from the three founding charter-management organizations, the students would include teachers in other New York City schools, both charter and noncharter, most of them from the New York Teaching Fellows program run by the district to bring in high-quality beginners.
鈥淭he people from our network were seeing the training needs of our teachers, but we also felt we were developing a level of expertise we wanted to share with as many teachers as possible,鈥� said KIPP鈥檚 Mr. Levin.
The work of the institute is also expected to inform the professional development the schools offer to teachers who already have their master鈥檚 degrees.
鈥淭his may be the 101 version of elementary teaching,鈥� Mr. Atkins said, 鈥渂ut over time we鈥檒l need a 201, 301, and 401 version, too.鈥�
