How Do We Keep New Teachers From Flunking?
Push Student Teachers Harder, Stick with Them Once They’re in the Classroom, and Integrate Them Into Their Schools' Communities
Teaching elementary or high school is not an easy job. But teaching teachers is tricky, too. Teacher preparation programs have to strike a delicate balance between theory and practice. And student teachers have to meet quantifiable measures of success (i.e. test scores) while inspiring far less tangible values like creativity and curiosity.
In the U.S. today, this complicated approach to training seems to be misfiring, and has earned many critics—including the people coming out of teacher preparation programs themselves. Almost two-thirds of new teachers report that their training left them underprepared. …
