Focus for 2005-2007

Weaving the Web of Democracy: Teaching All People's Children

Each of us has a picture of what it means to be a teacher and a student. We've created those pictures based on our own experiences as learners. However, what we experienced as students may or may not represent the realities of public schools now and in the future or the realities of the range of students with whom we will work.

We must challenge our current beliefs about schooling and "teaching" if we are to become effective advocates for all our students. Current demographic information strongly suggests that by 2015, teachers can expect a more diverse population of students in their classrooms. They will work with students from a wide range of ethnic origins, languages, abilities, and socio-economic backgrounds. Further, their students will live in a society that requires people to engage in creative problem-solving, utilize technological skills, collaborate effectively with co-workers, and actively seek information and resources. If public schools are to effectively prepare students for public life, reform may be less about externally mandated initiatives, and more about the critical, reflective practice of each teacher.

"Can prospective teachers learn to be both educators and activists, to regard themselves as agents for change, and to regard reform as an integral part of the social, intellectual, ethical and political activity of teaching?" This provocative question, posed more than a decade ago by Marilyn Cochran-Smith, nationally prominent professor of education at Boston University, provides the contextual framework for our study in MIT 2005-07. Our exploration of educative practice, in John Dewey's terms, will be integrated with larger issues of social justice in our democracy.

We invite people into this program who are eager to accept the challenge of discovering what it means to be a critically reflective practitioner. We want prospective teachers who are willing to challenge and question the existing structures of schooling in order to create learning environments based on the needs of all students. Therefore, we seek candidates

(i) with strong skills in critical reading, writing, and thinking;
(ii) with passionate interests in a variety of areas;
(iii) who actively seek out and are open to critical, constructive feedback; and
(iv) who have a genuine interest in their own intellectual, political, and emotional growth.

Among the questions that will energize our study and practice are:

• What are the impacts of development, motivation, emotion, cognitive processing styles, differing abilities, cultural contexts, and recent brain research on teaching and learning?
• Are there ways to teach that encourage students' curiosity and lead them to shape their own questions and pursue their own answers?
• What encourages and what inhibits students from struggling with something that is difficult? . How do learning theory and teaching practices inform each other and contribute to children's and adolescents' successes or failures?
• What are the implications of the State of Washington's Educational Reform and the federal legislation, "Leave No Child Behind," for our students and for us? . How will performance based education affect what and how we teach?
• How are questions of democracy, equity and excellence related to success or failure in our public schools? How can understanding social justice help us help our students?
• How are the more traditional literacies of reading, writing, and quantitative reasoning related to personal, economic, and political oppression and power?
• How can teachers respond to and work with family and cultural belief systems that shape children's lives when those belief systems may or may not be the same as our own? In other words, how can teachers who are socialized to accept the values of the dominant culture learn to educate children and youth without ignoring, denying, or rejecting their cultural heritages?
• How can we as teachers find the courage to recognize and address our own biases so we can better serve the diverse students with whom we will work?

The faculty for this cycle of the Master in Teacher Program include Dr. Sonja Wiedenhaupt, Dr. Sherry Walton, additional Evergreen faculty and current classroom practitioners.