Jumping through the hoops

How do we best ensure that we design courses in higher education that truly prepare future educators for the real challenges of the classroom? What can we do as professors or as reformers that best prepare potential teachers to be engaged with the content in our courses so that they are not just "jumping through hoops" to complete program requirements and to check one-course off their list? The answer may lie in simply thinking about how we would like to learn: in a highly engaging and relevant manner that speaks both to the heart and mind of teaching and learning.

Now, if this sounds vague thats probably because it is. Teaching to the heart and mind of a teacher can be both unclear, given the range of opinions on what "good teaching is" and often challenging because even within the profession we have different measurements that range from portfolio assessment to posting teaching ratings based on students ability on high-stakes test scores, which is happening as we speak in New York City. However, if we really dig a bit deeper and consider this: we are in the business of shaping both the hearts and minds of young men in our classroom and if we as so called gatekeepers of the profession do not explore what changing hearts and minds entails that we have truly missed the mark in terms of preparing future practioners. If we have the opportunity to design a course where teachers can learn reading and writing strategies in science and math areas, then lets really make an impact when we collect student work, and reflect upon our practice. Can we truly take a clear look inside of ourselves and be critical of our own practice or is this too much to ask? By taking a closer look at our hearts, our passions, our own fears, our own ability to identify those areas that we have the best opportunity to demonstrate growth, then and only then can we do better by our students. To simply our conversation around great teachers is certainly notable, but what about emerging greatness or those future educators who just need extra inspiration, motivating and skill building to reach higher ground.

Its notable that physicians and surgeons would not imagine entering into an operating room without first performing hundreds of hours of clinical on human subjects. We as patients would not want a physician even examining us in the clinic if he or she had not had exhaustive preparation for diagnosing everything from the common cold to pneumonia. Then why when perhaps, the most important training of our teachers, who are presented with tomorrows leaders and our future every single day for an entire school year, do not have the opportunity to undergo similar experiences with youth? How can we design coursework that blends both theory and practice so that all of our teachers have both the confidence and competency to succeed to directly impact student achievement? Its our hope in this course, that the opportunity to change both the hearts and the minds through transformational reading and writing experiences in the math and science classrooms, youth will be empowered to see themselves as agents of change, actively engaged rather than empty receptacles ready for a deposit of static and often unretrievable knowledge.