Martin Haberman

The Pedagogy of Poverty versus Good Teaching.

It will be formidably difficult to institutionalize new forms of pedagogy for the children of poverty, but it is worthwhile to define and describe such alternatives.

Developing Teachers for High-Poverty Schools The Role of the Internship Experience

This investigation sought to determine if there was a difference in the development of effective urban teacher characteristics after completing a traditional internship experience or a Professional Development School internship experience. The Urban Teacher Selection Interview was used to assess 10 characteristics including persistence, value of childrens learning, putting ideas into practice, approach to at-risk students, professional/personal orientation to students, the bureaucracy, fallibility, teacher success, student success, and planning and organization. Assessments were completed before and after subjects participated in urban internships. Pre- and posttest scores were compared using descriptive statistics and a paired-samples t test. Results communicated no significant difference between pre- and posttest scores when student interns completed a traditional or Professional Development School internship experience. This suggests that although the internship experience is often viewed as the capstone experience of teacher preparation programs, short-term experiences do not adequately prepare teacher candidates for urban school teaching.

The dimensions of excellence in programs preparing teachers for urban poverty schools

Schools that serve children and youth in poverty are getting worse, not better. This reflects societal conditions such as poverty, violence, racism, and various forms of child abuse. Schools seriously exacerbate the problem when they continue to offer limited curricula using authoritarian means of instruction. School personnel in ever-expanding urban school bureaucracies are major contributors to this escalation. So, too, are many principal and teacher failures and burnouts. In spite of these horrendous conditions, it is clear that a substantial minority of teachers are engaged in exemplary forms of practice and are demonstrating extremely positive influence even in these worsening schools. By analyzing how such teachers are still able to generate student achievements, it is possible to identify a knowledge base for selecting and preparing other urban educators to also be effective with children and youth in poverty. The guidelines which follow inform teacher education programs that aspire to social significance; those that would prepare teachers for the real world of urban poverty. In almost every case these guidelines represent markedly different assumptions and practices from those which characterize traditional programs of teacher education. Excellence in educating teachers for poverty schools is achieved by having star teachers mentor carefully selected beginners using their craft knowledge as the primary knowledge base. This on-site training must occur as beginning teachers assume the full role and responsibilities of teachers in the poorest schools under the very worst conditions of practice.

Twenty-Three Reasons Universities Can't Educate Teachers

Whatever is wrong with teacher education is wrong with higher education. With active student &dquo;help,&dquo; colleges and universities have been exposed as unable to meet a double-barrelled challenge: relevance for individual students and action against societal problems. Most critics of teacher education naively fail to recognize that any criticism of teacher education can be strengthened and amplified to include the higher education that functions as its parent and protector. If this contention seems a bit strong, it merely indicates that the clutching bear hug in which universities hold teacher education has dulled our senses. After a

The Role of the Classroom Teacher as a Curriculum Leader.

This writer looks at the role of the classroom teacher as curriculum leader in the two realms that cannot be taken away by textbook publishers, textmakers, or administrators: i.e., what is taught and what is learned.

Can Common Sense Effectively Guide the Behavior of Beginning Teachers

Common sense cannot and must not serve as the basis for professional prac tice, argues Haberman. Indeed, some common sense is nonsense; and some teachers who are well-educated and well-intentioned, but professionally un trained, are counterproductive in their efforts to foster student learning. The author describes the fallacy of basing teaching practices solely on common sense principles. He further asserts the need for teacher educators to make sig nificant improvements in present teacher preparation programs.

11 Consequences of Failing to Address the ‘Pedagogy of Poverty’:

Over the past 55 years, I’ve interviewed more than 5,000 teachers and observed in even more classrooms. I continue to visit classrooms and, when requested, coach classroom teachers. It’s painful to report that the teacher acts I described in this article 20 years ago are still the typical acts of teaching performed by all teachers. The only teacher act I would add to the 14 described in the article is the following: “Assigns questions to be answered by using Google or some other search engine.”

The Myth of the “Fully Qualified” Bright Young Teacher

The high frequency of beginning teachers’ being young females is traced in a brief review of the history of teacher education. The argument is made that the high turnover of beginning teachers, particularly in schools serving diverse students in poverty, is too costly to the schools and too harmful to the students to be continued. Teacher recruitment practices in the schools and candidate selection into teacher preparing institutions that maintain this situation are identified. The stages of adult development according to three theoretic formulations are presented. The nature of young adulthood in these theories is contrasted with the developmental needs of young adults hired as beginning teachers. The process by which school students shape and control the behavior and practice of young teachers is analyzed. Suggestions for altering the quitter/failure rate of young beginning teachers are offered.

Who Benefits From Failing Urban Schools? An Essay

This author speculates about who benefits from school failure. The article is grounded in the authors personal reflections over 50 years of involvement with urban schools, teachers, students, and administrators. He provides an in-depth critique of identifying the causes of school failure in the personal shortcomings of children and their families and resituates the discourse within a larger sociopolitical analysis of the many groups in society who benefit from the “natural,” largely unexamined acceptance of the myth that urban schools are doing everything possible to succeed. He addresses the construction of the myth and makes 19 specific predictions based on its widespread acceptance.

How Do University Administrators Evaluate Education Deans

Lasley and Haberman conducted a sur vey of higher education central adminis trators to determine what criteria they use to evaluate college of education deans. Respondents were requested to identify what criteria are used in dean ship evaluations and to specify the level of importance of each criterion in mak ing an overall assessment of the deans performance. The implications of the criteria are discussed in light of extant political activities and in terms of future policymaking.