School of Teacher Education keeps SDSU’s original mission alive in changing times

Sarah Buck has a demanding job.

When she comes home at the end of the day, pleasantly exhausted, she compares notes with her friends.

“I’m the only one who has anything positive to say about the day,” said Buck, who was surprised to learn how many people don’t like their jobs. “I talk to more and more recent graduates who are sitting in an office all day, or just doing something just because it pays the bills.”

Buck is about to wrap up her first year of teaching. After graduating from San Diego State University’s Teacher Education Program in May 2006, she was hired to teach second grade at Parkview Elementary School in the Chula Vista School District.

She teaches basic reading, writing and comprehension while covering subjects such as math, science and history. Along with this, she manages 16 young children and accommodates their individual learning styles.

As far as the classroom goes, however, there were no surprises.

From communicating with students whose first language is not English, to teaching diverse subjects effectively, Buck says that the SDSU credential program thoroughly prepared her for what she encountered in the classroom.

“I walked in feeling completely comfortable,” she said.

Sarah Buck leads students in a reading exercise.

Comfortable because the SDSU teacher education program focuses not only on subject content, but also on showing future teachers how to get through to students with different learning styles, create activities that will best convey lesson objectives, and manage a classroom.

Above all, students in the program receive a high level of mentoring that doesn’t end at graduation; Buck’s mentor, Cathy Zozakiewicz, still calls her and even visits her classroom from time to time. This continued support instills confidence, even though Buck is new to the complex task of teaching.

Original mission

Though San Diego State University has diversified and excelled in disciplines such as business, biology, communications and theater, its roots lie in teaching, and educators in the teacher education program are committed to keeping this charge alive by turning out teachers like Buck.

“The CSU is a teaching system. The system’s first priority is to teach,” said Nancy Farnan, director of the school of teacher education. “SDSU has built a reputation as a research university, but our mission remains to be a teaching institution.”

Students benefit from Buck's creative
lesson plans and confident teaching style.

The mission may be the same, but it’s hardly business as usual for program administrators, who are working to overcome challenges their San Diego Normal School counterparts never faced in 1897.

Taking into account factors such as technology, changing demographics, the high cost of living and competition from credential programs that can offer faster graduation, program administrators have chosen to become more flexible and offer alternative routes to the teacher credential.

New challenges

One of the biggest challenges is teaching teachers to overcome language barriers.

According to paper published in 2005 by the Public Policy Institute of California, more than one quarter of students in California schools are learning English in the classroom as a second language. Eighty-four percent of these students speak Spanish. This data was taken from the 2003 administration of the California English Language Development Test (CELDT).

Nancy Farnan, director of the SDSU School of
Teacher Education, hears regularly from principals
who prefer SDSU teachers in their classrooms.

It’s not just Spanish, though; teachers must communicate effectively with students whose first language can be Armenian or Vietnamese.

On top of this, the English-immersion instruction must improve these students’ English-speaking abilities while keeping their knowledge of the subject material on par with students already fluent in English.

One-fourth of Buck’s classroom does not speak English as a first language, but she says it hasn’t been a problem for her.

“SDSU’s program really prepares you for a very multicultural demographic,” Buck said. “They give you a lot of instruction and strategies on how to handle that, especially for someone like me who doesn’t speak a word of Spanish.”

Rave reviews

Given Buck’s confidence in front of her class and rave reviews from local principals, something is obviously working.

Jamacha Elementary School Principal Dana Stevenson works with student teachers and often formally evaluates them from a principal’s perspective.

Sarah Buck and her students

“I have worked with a lot of new teachers, and the student teachers who come from San Diego State are very well prepared,” he said. “They have a real solid program that prepares them for application in the classroom.”

Farnan and her colleagues work closely with school officials in local districts, putting a high priority on translating their specific needs to the instruction given to the credential students. As a result, she hears regularly from principals like Stevenson who put a high priority on having SDSU student teachers and credential program graduates in their classrooms.

Enrollment down

However, despite demonstrated success, SDSU’s program has been steadily losing students. Farnan estimates that enrollment is down approximately 30 percent from seven years ago.

Local competitors, such as National University and the University of Phoenix can offer faster graduation, less competitive entry and, in some cases, lower tuition.

Program managers understand why the competition is enticing. Considering the high cost of living in San Diego, and the fact that program enrollment precludes gainful employment for almost a full year, the prospect of a traditional two-semester program, which includes a student teaching stint, is daunting. After all, most candidates already have bills, including student loan debt to pay.

However, Farnan points out that there is no substitute for quality, citing the praise the program receives regularly from graduates and local education officials, and the abundance of employment opportunities for teachers who are willing to look beyond the San Diego Unified School District.

Also dragging down enrollment is a dearth of single-subject credential candidates in the fields of math and science. Many recent graduates from undergraduate math and science programs have lucrative job offers on the horizon whereas teaching careers are known for modest pay.

Sarah Buck

The key to getting students back into the program, Farnan said, is increased flexibility — accelerated and part-time programs and hybrid courses that incorporate in-class and online instruction.

A recently created “science intern” program allows single-subject credential candidates to work as teachers while in the program. These candidates are also eligible for special scholarships offered by the National Science Foundation.

So far, the science intern program has been a resounding success: Several of the science graduates who graduated last year won local and statewide awards for the projects they created in the classroom

Farnan is also trying to get the word out about the rewards of teaching.

“I think it’s like a lot of things; people find their own satisfaction in a job. You can find satisfaction being a mortgage broker; you can find satisfaction being a doctor or anything else. But I think being a part of education is exciting an interesting; you get to actually change the lives of children and young adults.”

Another 110 years

Turning young people on to teaching early will become crucial in the coming years, as teachers in the baby boomer age bracket retire in droves.

As long as there are people like Buck, who want to make a difference in the lives of young people, the SDSU School of Teacher Education will prepare them for a rewarding career.

At the end of the day, knowing that there are well-qualified educators teaching our future leaders should make us all a little more comfortable.

Related information

• School of Teacher Education
• California Department of Education
• California English Language Development Test
• San Diego Normal School
• Teacher Magazine

Credits

• Story by Lauren Coartney
• Photographs by Happy Aston
• Graphics by John Signer
• Edited by Aaron J. Hoskins