Renae Wright Reflection 1

Most people begin to think about Universities, colleges, and degree programs when they see or hear about a teacher preparation program. Teacher preparation programs prepare an individual to teach in a particular subject in a classroom setting. In colonial times teachers didn’t receive a formal preparation. During that period teaching was viewed as a temporary job and not as a career. Most elementary teachers were teenagers who learned their craft by watching master teachers and most of them would have never attended a secondary school. A few of the secondary level teachers had some type of education on the college level but not many. Reverend Samuel Hall established a school called Normal School in 1823. This particular school was considered a private institution that was located in Concord, Vermont and it provided elementary school graduates with formal teaching skills training. In 1839 Horace Mann followed Reverend Hall and established the first Normal School in Lexington Massachusetts. Teaching in this period was considered a female occupation, so by 1920’s a teacher contract was generated to provide the rules and regulations of being a teacher. One rule, in particular that shocked me was that a teacher could not be married and could not keep company with men. Also in that period, teachers were being paid $75 dollars a month which attracted more females to attend school. By the 20th century more students enrolled in elementary school which caused a higher demand for teachers. As the demand grew higher, so did the normal schools which later change from a two years institution to a four year program and by then they were considered a college. Education began to spiral in the early 1980’s as a result a lot of controversy reform reports on professionalism and teacher preparation began to emerge. One group named the “Holmes Group” released a report titled “Tomorrow’s teacher” which basically states that the standards for teachers needed to raise. They believed that the undergraduate education programs needed to be replaced with graduated programs, which means an individual should only be able to teach if they hold a Masters degree in education. Some states have implemented this rule while some prefers there educators to have a masters but it is not mandatory. In today’s society there are two ways to approach a career in teaching. There is the traditional teachers program, which is highly recommended, where you enter into a four year program and there is the “alternative teacher programs.” The alternative teachers program is a sort of on-the-job training for an individual who wants to become a teacher but didn’t go to school for it. One of the alternative programs is Teach for America (TFA), which was created by Wendy Kopp a college student in 1990 at Princeton. The TFA would recruit individuals who wants to make a difference in their community, to teach in a under resource and rural school for two years. These individuals would later be called corp members and like many, drop out of the program before it’s completed. Even though these students had the desire to teach and help there community, to learn under those condition would be very stressful. To me, the best way to be fully prepared to become an educator in a classroom setting is through a traditional program.