To Train a Teacher

San Diego State University is one of the largest universities in the western United States, and the de facto flagship of the California State University system. With more than 34,000 students, SDSU now offers bachelor’s degrees in 74 areas of study, master’s in 55 and doctorates in 10.

Yet the school remains true to its roots. SDSU was founded in 1897 as the Normal School, with seven faculty members and 91 students. Its sole purpose: to train and educate elementary-school teachers. It wasn’t until 1935 that the California Legislature authorized the expansion of degree programs into areas other than teacher preparation.

Today, SDSU’s School of Teacher Education is still one of the two primary local sources of new teachers, handing out some 700 credentials every year, including those in special education and bilingual education. The other is National University’s School of Education, a massive teacher mill that during the 2001-2002 school year recommended a whopping 4,200 individuals for preliminary and professional credentials, mostly elementary and secondary education.

Rafaela Santa Cruz has been with SDSU’s School of Teacher Education for 20 years, the past two as acting director. She’s seen thousands of new teachers get their credentials and go off into the world, many opting to stay in San Diego.

Overall, Santa Cruz says, teachers today are a lot better prepared than their counterparts a generation—or even a decade—ago. She gives much credit to state efforts to beef up teacher training in the 1990s, particularly a far-reaching overhaul of California teacher education requirements, signed into law in 1998 by then-Governor Pete Wilson, that mandated a two-year classroom internship for novice teachers rather than the traditional fifth year of study.

At the time, David Wright, director of the programs and policy division of the California State Commission on Teacher Credentialing, called the bill “the most comprehensive review of teacher education in California history.”

With the two-year internship, Santa Cruz says, new teachers not only learn what to teach, they learn how to teach. Marie Schrup, the dean of National University’s School of Education, says that’s an important distinction.

“Through research and practice, we have learned a lot over the years about what teachers should know and be able to do with a variety of student populations,” Schrup says. “The challenges teachers encounter in every classroom require many different skills—dealing with all areas of the curriculum, individual students’ special needs, English-language learners and less-than-ideal working conditions in many locations, to name a few.

“Over the last decade,” she continues, “the demands on teachers have increased in the name of standards and accountability in an effort to raise student achievement. Teachers need to be prepared to handle what they will face every day on the job. It’s a huge responsibility.”

Prospective teachers are still primarily female, Santa Cruz says, particularly on the multiple-subject elementary-school level. “I think elementary-school teaching has always been viewed as a female profession —and it’s also a function of the starting salary, which until a few years ago was in the low $20,000s,” she says. “A lot of men didn’t think they could raise a family on that. Now, starting salaries have risen into the $30,000s, and we’re starting to see more men enter the profession. We work hard trying to recruit males. We’re always looking for more diversity in our teacher candidates.”

Bonnie Telfer, SDSU’s adviser for prospective elementary-school teachers, says 60 percent of her students are young women in their early 20s who have just graduated with a liberal studies education. “And then we have the other 40 percent who are career changers,” she says. “I see a lot of attorneys, a lot of MBAs and a lot of people in advertising and other business careers who feel those jobs or careers are not bringing them a lot of meaning. They want a job where they can truly make a difference in this world.”

What type of person is drawn to the teaching profession? “People who are real and who—I hate to use a cliché—are lifetime learners,” says Santa Cruz. “They enjoy reading, they enjoy learning, and they are not afraid of work—hard work.

“You know, it really takes a special person to become a teacher—a good teacher. You have to have good social skills and people skills; you have to have a certain amount of empathy; you have to be motivated and be willing to motivate other people. You have to be curious and have your own little sense of inquiry and research—you have to say, ‘I have a problem here; this child is not learning, so I need to figure out what things we can do.’

“You just basically have to believe,” says Santa Cruz. “This is a key thing, really—you have to believe that all students are capable of learning. And if you truly believe that, you’re going to try to find a way to get them to learn, regardless of how reluctant or unmotivated they are.”

Requirements for the credential program at SDSU are typical of similar programs at other universities around the state. Prospective teachers must either earn a bachelor’s degree, or be in the process of earning a degree, before they can be accepted into the School of Teacher Education. For would-be elementary-school teachers, a liberal studies major is preferred; for candidates who want to teach high school, there are teaching programs in single-subject majors like English, science and math. Future teachers must also take three introductory courses in multicultural education, health education and special education

Other prerequisites include taking a subject-matter-competency test, writing an essay, undergoing a tuberculosis test and obtaining a certificate of clearance from the state of California “that shows you’re not a criminal or a danger to children,” Santa Cruz says. And oh yes, those with a grade point average of less than 2.67 need not apply.

The actual credential program lasts two semesters and consists of classwork as well as 16 weeks of student teaching. Telfer says SDSU has nine partner schools in its elementary-school program and five partners in its single-subject upper-class program.

Those 16 weeks are really “make or break” time, she says. “This is where we find out if someone is what we call ‘with it,’” she says. “In other words, you have to balance so many things at one time—you have to watch kids in class; think about what you’re teaching, content-wise; make sure you have the materials and supplies you need; and grade papers. You need to be very organized and manage so many things at one time, and you’re going to have to do all that knowing you’re constantly going to get interrupted. If you don’t have those skills, you find out very quickly.”

Sometimes, prospective teachers are asked to leave, Telfer adds. “The way they are disqualified for the program is through getting a GPA of below 3.0, or a grade lower than ‘C’ in any course, or by not getting credit for student teaching,” she says. “And if they don’t get credit, that can be the result of either the cooperating teacher or the principal asking that person not to return. It’s generally someone who’s consistently late, isn’t prepared to teach, doesn’t follow directions or does not get along well with other people.”

At the end of the credential program, teacher candidates take a state Teacher Performance Assessment test. Those who pass go on to their two-year internships, and only after that are professional teaching credentials awarded by the state.

Betty Bond, who teaches third grade at Hope Elementary School in Carlsbad, observes and mentors new teachers during their internships through the state’s Beginning Teacher Support & Assistance Program. She also teaches adjunct classes at National University to student teachers. For the most part, she says, she likes what she sees.

“We’re getting a highly skilled individual, a person who is skilled in the science of teaching as well as the art of teaching,” Bond says. “They are extremely capable young people, extremely committed and very eager to be part of this profession.”

The training doesn’t stop once prospective teachers finish their internships and obtain their professional credentials. Under California law, teachers are required to take 150 hours of “professional growth” workshops each year—which explains why three months of summer vacation, once the norm for teachers, is now an anomaly.

National University’s Schrup is pleased with this strengthened emphasis on training. “Research has shown that it takes at least three to five years to become a fully proficient teacher in the classroom,” she says. “The design for teacher preparation in California is intended to prepare a beginning teacher and then support that teacher so he or she stays in the classroom.”

Schrup maintains that “150 hours of professional growth is important to ensure teachers are keeping current on teaching and learning as it relates to their jobs. As in all professions, learning never ends. Expert teachers know how to recognize children experiencing difficulties, diagnose sources of the problem in their learning and identify strengths on which to build. This doesn’t happen overnight, and workshops give teachers the opportunity to share their experiences and build their own skills.”

On top of state training requirements, individual school districts often have their own requirements. The San Diego Unified School District, in particular, places heavy emphasis on training for its 8,000-plus teachers. Prior to Alan Bersin’s arrival as superintendent in 1998, the district spent about $1 million a year on teacher training. Under Bersin, the budget has ballooned to $60 million, an amount the superintendent hopes to increase even further to $100 million.

In his annual “state of the district” speech last April, Bersin explained that “the continuing education of our teachers on research-based instructional techniques and strategies” is a keystone of his reforms. “I was amazed when I became superintendent to learn our organization, an educational institution, spent less than 1/10th of 1 percent of its annual budget on teacher training and staff development,” he said. “The world of teaching and learning is changing dramatically, and our teachers must have regular access to today’s cutting-edge instructional techniques.”

Bersin proudly noted the spending jump on training programs and provided a thumbnail sketch of what the district has done to step up training since he took charge. “We are working hard to provide consistent, ongoing training opportunities for our 8,000 teachers,” he said. “We are using all available opportunities for training, including intersession, the summer, after school, on Saturdays and during the school day.”

Some teachers accuse the district of overkill. Last July, when The San Diego Union-Tribune ran an editorial praising Bersin’s commitment to teacher training, a rash of dissenting letters came in, mostly written by teachers.

“Every member of the math department at my year-round school was at a professional development session last week,” wrote Marion Snell, a librarian at Montgomery Middle School in Linda Vista and a board member of the San Diego Education Association (the teachers’ union). “The topic: classroom management. The audience included some who had been teaching for 23 years. Most of them knew classroom management techniques that the instructor had never dreamed of. In addition, all sixth-grade teachers were out of their classrooms for two days the week before being ‘developed’ in how to use the new sixth-grade math textbook for next year. And what were they given? Exact lesson plans to be followed day by day.”

Stories like that make Norma Fox’s blood boil. “It shows a lack of respect for the profession of teaching and for teachers,” says Fox, a Spanish teacher at University City High School. “We’ve been locked into having longer meetings, and you always get a little lecture, little lessons on reading and on different teaching strategies, instead of being involved with the problems and concerns of the school as they occur.

“It’s fine if you’re going to a workshop, but it’s like being bombarded. I guess they [the district] figure if students are doing poorly, it must be the teachers who aren’t doing their jobs.”

San Diego Unified’s growing emphasis on teacher training has created another challenge—substitute teaching. Last year, the district used 45,400 substitute days for “professional development,” resulting in a severe shortage of qualified substitute teachers. In an editorial, the normally pro-Bersin Union-Tribune even opined that it is “downright disgraceful when custodians have to double as substitutes.” (The editorial did not refer to any specific incident.)

In his speech last April, Bersin acknowledged that “training during the school day requires the hiring of substitutes. We are reviewing the best mix of training times and venues,” he said. “Our goal is to develop a training schedule that is both responsive to teacher needs and can best accommodate the greatest number of teachers.”

Scott Grimes, research director of San Diego Dialogue, a public-policy center at the University of California at San Diego, applauds Bersin’s efforts to better train teachers. If there’s room for improvement, he says, it would be a more equitable distribution of experienced teachers, who tend to be concentrated in wealthier schools with largely white student populations, “while teachers new to the profession are concentrated in poorer schools or schools with a lot of children of color.”

It’s not that experienced teachers are necessarily better teachers, Grimes notes. “I don’t know that you can make any blanket statement,” he says. “But if you’re trying to substantially increase the academic standards promoted at schools, it doesn’t seem to be very smart to concentrate lots and lots of brand-new teachers together at one school. There are plenty of very talented, very smart teachers in their first or second or third years, but I don’t think it’s healthy to have 40 or 50 percent of the faculty members at certain schools who are that inexperienced.”

Unfortunately, Grimes says, this is out of the district’s hands. The teachers’ union contract rewards seniority, and experienced teachers get first crack at where they’d like to be transferred. “So if a job opens up in the Carmel Valley section,” Grimes says, “a teacher with a lot of experience teaching in City Heights will have a better shot at getting that job than will a teacher with less experience.” n

Prim, proper and poised to enter the teaching profession, students at Normal School, now SDSU, circa 1900.

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