Two things I meant to post here earlier, but that pesky day-job kept getting in the way:
First, from several different sources (including an alert EMUTalk.org reader and EMU media wonk) comes news that EMU and several other Michigan universities are participating in a program funded by the Kellogg foundation to encourage and attract math and science teachers. Here’s the Michigan Public Radio story; I heard a similar story on WEMU that included a snippet of an interview with Susan Martin, but I couldn’t find the link.
Second, there’s this story from NPR’s All Things Considered from about a week ago, “Michigan Teaching School Tries Something New.” The “teaching school” in question is the University of Michigan, and basically, the premise is that they are revisiting and revamping the requirements for their teaching certification program by talking with recent graduates and current students. I don’t know if this means they will end up with a program that looks more like EMU’s or not, but it does make a lot of sense to me to rethink programs like this based on feedback from students.
As someone who teaches students who are wanting to be English teachers or graduate students who already are in classrooms, I think these programs make some sense: we do need more science and math teachers and probably fewer Literature and Language Arts teachers, to be honest. Although to be really REALLY honest, I don’t think going into secondary or elementary education is necessarily the greatest career move nowadays. I know that’s probably blasphemy to say this at a “teachers college” like EMU, but there you have it.
