OCR Text |
Show FOCUS: TEACHER ED THE. UNIVERSITY JOURNAL• SOUTHERN UTAH UNIVERSITY• FRIDAY, JANUARY U, 1996 Department 'manufactures' future teachers The university's oldest forum has 'had time to perfect its technique' campus education faculty are likely to spend as Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day'. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime. It is an adage many hours on the road during any given quarter as they are on campus. as old as time itself, and one that honors two of "We do field work from our 202 classes on, "the humanity's most ancestral pursuits. For in learning department head said. to fish, men and women from all walks of life "We have secondary students in Phoenix, Arizona, returned to the sea that gave them life; and in in Victorville, Calif., and at Cedar High School this passing on the knowledge of poles and nets to each quarter, and our elementary students are in Las succeeding generation, they paid tribute to life Vegas, and St. George. We go to a wide variety of itself. places, and part of the reason for that is the The place of the teacher has been an honored and accreditation process. a respected one in all world societies and cultures "As the accreditors come in, they say 'You're here since the dawn of history. in downtown Cedar City, a rural, predominantly Humanity learned quickly, it would seem, that Mormon community-you need to give these without individuals with the skills and savvy to students a variety of experiences,'" Robinson added. transfer to a new generation the knowledge and "And that's exactly what we do. What we find out wisdom of the old, civilization would be doomed to through all of this is that students all have the same failure; and entire chapters of the global lore have needs-regardless of where they live and under what been reserved for the lessons taught by such master circumstances, public school students are public teachers as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Confucius. school students." The SUU department of teacher education may This week-long field-based practicum is just one not have producing such world-renowned facet of the SUU teacher education department's philosophers and mentors in mind, but the block program-an intensive quarter-long collection department and its faculty are very much in the business of manufacturing educators ready to meet the challenges of the teaching role in the 21st century and beyond. As the university's oldest and most established forum of instruction, the department has had a good deal of time to perfect its technique; and with a dedicated faculty and staff, a host of eager students and instructional philosophy brimming with handson experience and real-world anxiety, the department is proving every bit as effective a spot to train men and women to fish as the lakes and streams of the planet's antiquity. With headquarters in the basement of Old Main, the university facility that housed the original Branch Normal School, the department of teacher education continues to be one of the institution's most popular areas of study-but don't expect to see many of its students hanging around the facility, which was erected in 1898 to house a training center for regional teachers. "Part of our philosophy is that we are a field-based program," said Kevin Robinson, teacher education depa rtment b ead. "We want to get students out into the schools as quickly as possible and as of ten as possible. Many schools prepare their students to be good graduate students; we train them to be teachers, with the idea that they can return to the classroom themselves later on to work on advanced degrees," Robinson said. With master and major areas of study in elementary, secondary education, majors in special education and a minor in reading, the department has a good deal of ground to cover in exposing its students to real-world experience- and that's why Kevin L. Robinson, department bead of education Robinson and the rest of the I of courses and experiences specifically designed to simulate the pressures and rewards of real-life teaching work. "Students often don't like the block; we demand a lot of them, and the travel can get expensive," Robinson said of the program, a university original. " But we feel like the experience far outweighs the expenses." And that's exactly the message SUU's teacher education students are gaining as well through student teaching work, a certification requirement that finds department majors taking to the blackboard at schools throughout the American West. "We pretty much allow them to go, within reason, wherever they want to, especially in Utah, Arizona and Nevada, " Robinson said of the student teaching effort. "And we as faculty do a lot of traveling to supervise the student teaching program. Many schools hire supervisors, people who really don' t know the kids they're supervising; but not at this school. "I'm supervising this quarter in Emery County in Utah and in Clark County in Nevada," he added, "and the dean of the College of Education, Fred Lunenburg, supervises a lot of the northern Utah placings so he can kill two birds with one stone while attending deans' meetings in Salt Lake City." Add to these efforts a newly approved masters of Education program under the direction of Dr. Quenton Bowler, and university extension programs in such farflung locales as Richfield, St. George, and Delta, and the university's department of teacher education is well on its way to filling an entire region with men and women well-versed in the ways of oceans and fish-and more than ready to share that knowledge with succeeding generations. The education department is also currently working on a new CD ROM interactive video that will be completed by this fall according to Don Barnes, associate professor of teacher education. The program is being designed to help students deal with classroom management problems before actually steppin.g into the classroom. The educators said they hope to use the program for SU students and help teachers in the community out as well. "Our job placement is generally very high if the students are willing to relocate," Robinson said of the department's success. "We've seen a lot of students ~ hired in Clark County with the ~ growth there, and along the Wasatch Front as well. 5 "And we have a lot of small-town ~ students going home to work when ~ they have finished here, and we ; think that's great! :i "After all, a big part of our job is ~ to serve these small communities in southern Utah," he added. 8 |