Philosophy and Goals

II. Philosophy and Goals

The department's philosophy operates on the assumption that schools, in general, and teacher education, in particular, have played a central but often uncritical role in the shaping of American society. Therefore, we require our candidates to critically examine the relationship between American public schools and the democratic and capitalist structures of U.S. society. Unlike traditional education programs - that tend to reproduce the technocratic and corporate ideologies that characterize dominant societies (McLaren, Apple, Boyles and Gintis) - we aim to produce teacher candidates that examine these ideologies; developing their own analyses of the historical and contemporary role of schools in American society.

In keeping with the liberal arts tradition, the study of teaching and education at Connecticut College is not examined through a practitioner or "training" model that stresses "techniques," but, rather, is engaged as an intellectual pursuit. Theory is, therefore, taught in deep contingency with "method" throughout a candidate's coursework, even in so-called methodology courses. In other words, the department does not view the practice of teaching as the obtainment of specific recipes or techniques to be implemented but rather as the engagement of praxis - a critical and analytical process that brings theoretical frameworks to bear on real world struggles.

We also believe that the work of teachers and students should revolve around the creation of a dynamic PK-12 social justice curriculum and, similarly, that a program in teacher education should reflect the same assumptions and outcomes of PK-12 classrooms.

Therefore, the mission of the department is to educate candidates who, regardless of their content area, can integrate the imperatives of social justice. The Department defines a coherent "social justice curriculum" as one that enacts the following five goals in a reflexive, wholly interdependent, and cogent manner.³

Goal 1. To develop teachers who understand that excellence in teaching begins with superior and critical knowledge of their subject matter as the grounding for the development of high standards of excellence and achievement for their PK-12 students.

We believe that a teacher education curriculum centered in social justice is more demanding than a traditional teacher education curriculum. First, teacher candidates are expected to attain high levels of achievement within their discipline, understanding the major concepts, assumptions, processes of inquiry and ways of knowing central to their discipline. Second, they are expected to learn to interrogate this knowledge base, engaging in sophisticated levels of critical thinking, reading, computation, writing, and analysis. Finally, teacher candidates are expected to develop their "public voices," gaining the skills, knowledge and confidence necessary to defend, debate, and engage their viewpoints in public settings and become "public intellectuals." As suggested by Jeannie Oakes and Martin Lipton, authors of Teaching to Change Our World, our teacher candidates are required to ask the questions "What counts as knowledge?" and "Who determines what counts?" underscoring the role of teachers as intellectuals and not just "social technicians parceling out a commodity called knowledge." Teresa Ebert (1999) refers to this as knowledge base as "critique-al knowledge."

Goal 2. To develop teachers who understand PK-12 classrooms as microcosms of larger socio-cultural and economic contexts and, in turn, create classrooms as critical places where students are taught to pose essential questions about power, equality and inequality.

We believe that part of a teacher's role is to suggest that ideas have real consequences (that) should be acted upon, and to offer students opportunities to do just that" (Rethinking Schools, p. 3). However, as Peter McLaren and others (Giroux, Apple, Kohl, Amy Guttman) note, schools are seldom places where critical questions are encouraged or where PK-12 students are given the opportunity to challenge conventional wisdom. The department understands that this will only change when teachers learn to create learning environments that support "making meaning." Therefore, our teacher candidates not only engage a curriculum that compels them to question assumptions about power and its institutional structures but also to reflect on how such arrangements of power have created inequalities in school and society. We believe that this preparation provides candidates the necessary knowledge to create critical classroom environments that support and engage all students’ voices.

Goal 3. To develop teachers who construct pedagogies that are grounded in the lives of students and their communities.

The teacher education department at Connecticut College adheres to the Connecticut Common Core of Teaching (CCCT, 1999), in that our candidates are expected to know the major concepts, principles and theories related to human growth and development, including language acquisition, culture and developmental exceptionalities. We expect candidates to understand how factors in the students’ environment outside of school may influence students’ life and learning. Our goal is to have candidates use this content knowledge to build a progressive and critical approach to learning that fully supports their PK-12 students, families and communities.

Goal 4. To develop teachers who create PK-12 classrooms that are multicultural, anti-racist and anti-bias.

As the nation's public schools, especially in urban environments, become increasingly composed of a majority of poor, working-class and/or students of color, its teaching force remains overwhelmingly white, female and middle class. Delpit and others note that what results is a culture clash framed by a lack of understanding of how "others" learn and live. Our candidates come to understand the nature of this conflict through their own reflection and fieldwork that is grounded in multiple opportunities to examine the racial, class, and gender dimensions of society. They learn through these experiences that antiracist, antibias, and multicultural classrooms are never static intellectual places (Delpit, Sleeter) and to view pedagogy as a field of struggle over meaning (Patrick Shannon, Donaldo Macedo).

Our candidates learn that this approach to teaching is not a new idea but rather firmly grounded in the history of resistance to oppression wherein teachers and their students have always played a critical role in furthering the principles of democracy. Following Brazilian educator and activist Paulo Freire, we are primarily concerned with an education that is, "directed at helping students become critically literate as distinct from functionally literate or culturally literate."

Goal 5. To develop teachers who create PK-12 classrooms that are participatory and experiential, allowing students and teachers to engage in work that often lies outside the traditional assumptions of the "classroom."

Candidates experience a teacher education program that is not restricted to campus classrooms but rather is continually extended into the larger community. As stated in the Connecticut Common Core of Teaching (CCCT), educators should "demonstrate a commitment to their students and a passion for their profession . . . serv[ing] as leaders in the school community." Our candidates furthermore understand that good teaching enables their own students to make seamless connections between school and the larger community, providing them multiple opportunities to engage subject matter knowledge toward community and social transformation. These premises of commitment, leadership and passion are central to our understanding of a critical approach to teacher education. (Rethinking Schools, Meier, Counts, McLaren)

³ It is important to note that the five goals are not listed in order of importance or any other hierarchical order.

Last Modified: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 4:26 PM