Ain't nothin' like the real thing: preparing teachers in an urban environment.

In her first journal reflection, Stephanie, a preservice teacher, described her initial impression of the urban school in which she was working. She wrote, "To be totally honest, my first impression was that I have never seen so many black people in my entire life!" While this comment may be surprising and jarring, Stephanie was being upfront about what many of my students were feeling in their first days of the Urban Semester Program at Ball State University.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2000), almost 40 percent of the total U.S. public school population is made up of students of color; in many metropolitan school districts, that number exceeds 80 percent. However, as the demographics of schools in the United States are changing, the population of preservice teachers remains much the same. As Roman (1999b) states:

The student body in the United States is becoming more diverse than ever, while the teaching population is becoming less so. Teachers of European American background have had very little experience with bicultural students, and they may in fact harbor negative or stereotypical ideas about them. Further, many teacher education programs have a poor record of educating teachers for diversity. (p. 97)

With a growing number of African American students as well as those from other cultures, who will teach the children in large urban schools? Most likely, it will be young, white, females who are fresh out of college, with little experience and with little knowledge about those children's cultures.

Colleges and universities are presented with the problem of preparing teachers for diverse classrooms on a daily basis. As educators, we realize the importance of teaching preservice teachers about diversity. We offer courses in multicultural training, we teach about black history, and we even teach students about using appropriate classroom materials that are not biased or prejudiced. However, the majority of this education is offered in small parts and isolated courses. According to Abdal-Haqq (1998):

Isolated courses in multicultural education are unlikely to equip teachers for such work [work with diverse populations]. Many such courses appear to take the "music appreciation" approach to diversity. They promote acceptance, tolerance, and even respect for diversity, but they do not necessarily affirm it. (p. 68)

The lack of preparation for teaching in urban settings is one problem. In addition, research indicates that many new teachers in urban schools will leave within their first years of teaching. Since "as many as 50% of beginning teachers [are] leaving urban schools within the first five years" (Allen, 2003, p. vii), colleges and universities must prepare preservice teachers to work with students of various races and cultures. Teaching future educators to survive in a variety of settings is a key factor in their success or failure as urban educators. According to Watzke (2003):

"Survival" has been characterized by many researchers as an initial stage in teacher development, marked by stress and issues of classroom management, an obstacle that must be overcome in order to advance in teaching practice. Veenman (1984) described this stage as one of reality shock--new teachers must adapt to the realities of classroom teaching from which they have been sheltered through traditional teacher education programs. (p. 223)

At Ball State University, we wanted to make this "reality shock" less severe for our preservice teachers, and better prepare them for the children they would someday teach. We knew that something had to be done to place preservice teachers in an alternate environment where diversity training occurred on a daily basis. Thus, the Urban Semester Program at Ball State University began.

The Urban Semester Program

The Urban Semester Program is an immersion program for junior level students. In this immersion experience, participants take a semester of classes while spending all day, five days a week, working in one of two elementary schools in the Indianapolis Public Schools System. The populations of the two elementary schools are largely poor (96 percent and 94 percent free and reduced meal eligibility) and largely African American (89 percent and 88 percent), in sharp contrast to the university population of preservice teachers, who are mostly European American (95 percent). The Indianapolis school system was chosen for this collaborative project because it represented a true urban setting, had a diverse population of students, and was located only an hour from the Ball State campus. The goals of this partnership were to debunk the myths about teaching in an urban location while also promoting positive attitudes about teaching in such a setting. The ultimate goal was to recruit students for job openings in the urban environment by preparing them through field placements in diverse surroundings.

By working side by side with experienced urban teachers, the college students learn about real-life issues teachers face while completing methods classes. The students are able to apply what they have learned with the children in the classrooms while obtaining immediate feedback about their lesson plans. The classes the preservice teachers complete in the Urban Semester include Math Methods, Science Methods, Social Studies Methods, Introduction to Special Education, and Classroom Management. College students attend all of these classes in their elementary buildings, and the professors travel from campus to teach and supervise field experiences. When they are not in college classes, the students participate in every aspect of teaching while assigned to one elementary classroom. They teach lessons, create teaching materials, attend teacher inservice sessions, and learn to manage the classroom on their own. Most important, they learn about children in urban settings and how to become more empowered in reaching and teaching them on a daily basis. Opportunities to develop relationships with families are another focus of the semester. Preservice teachers participate in parent-teacher conferences and extracurricular and community events where, for the first time, they have the opportunity to dialogue with children's families and members of the urban community.

The students in this program tell us that they learn more in a semester of urban experience than they do from years of on-campus classes. The following pages describe lessons they have learned.

Attitude Is Everything

As in the journal entry previously mentioned, many of the preservice teachers come to this program with existing stereotypes and preconceived notions. One of the best ways to change these ideas is to immerse the students into every aspect of the school and community through such practices as Back to School Night and parent-teacher conferences. All Urban Semester students participate in these events and in the discussions that are held afterwards. The day after parent-teacher conferences, for example, several students reported that few parents had attended, therefore concluding that the parents "just didn't care!" Many preservice educators hold such beliefs, according to Ann Scott (1999). In her essay titled "Reaction to Ethnic Notions," she states:

Because of their cultural uniformity, and unless there are conscious strategies to the contrary, pre-service programs often serve as a mechanism for reproducing negative and racist attitudes and beliefs that later get translated into teaching approaches that continue to create unequitable education. (p. 31)

Scott goes on to state that "the general assumption among pre-service teachers was that the parents did not really care about their children or their children's education" (p. 31). To debunk this notion, we held a brainstorming session in the Urban Semester Program about why the parents did not attend, and the students eventually realized that the parents may have been working at a second or third job, may not have been able to secure transportation to the school, or may not have had child care for their children at home. Over time, the preservice teachers understood that the urban parents, in most cases, were truly doing the best they could to provide for their children, even though they did not attend all school events.

Materials Do Matter

Another area that is strongly addressed in the Urban Semester Program is that of using culturally responsive materials in lessons and bulletin boards. Since the majority of the preservice teachers in this program are white, a major focus of our classes is to expose them to multicultural literature, diverse learners, and the contributions of all people, regardless of color, gender, or race. In the elementary education course, for example, students create a multicultural literature pack, which must include a book that appropriately represents a culture other than their own. In class, we discuss examining materials for bias and stereotypes and making appropriate curriculum decisions for the learners in their classrooms. In science class, the students create lessons about famous inventors who are not the stereotypical "dead white males" whom they often learn about in school. The students draw on material about people from other cultures, in the process learning a great deal about other cultures so they can transfer this information to the children they teach. By participating in the Urban Semester, the preservice teachers learn about developmentally and culturally appropriate teaching in ways that are not possible on campus.

Kids Are Key

The immersion in the urban setting also shows the preservice teachers that it is hard to teach students with whom you have not yet connected. According to Delpit (1995), culturally diverse students find themselves at a disadvantage for many reasons, including the fact that:

Nowhere do we foster inquiry into who our students really are or encourage teachers to develop links to the often rich home lives of our students; yet teachers cannot hope to begin to understand who sits before them unless they can connect with families and communities from which their students come. (p. 179)

By getting to know the communities in which the children live, taking part in home visits, and initiating family events, our preservice teachers are learning about the students they teach and making connections to the lives of the children in their classrooms.

One event, called Family Fun Night, was created by the students in our program to bring parents, families, and community members into the schools to participate in hands-on science activities that can be easily duplicated at home. This event allows preservice teachers to interact with families and learn more about the children they are teaching, and it provides a rewarding teaching experience. This event also provides an opportunity for rich professional growth in the area of community building among our students, and creates parent and family involvement experiences that are often lacking in traditional college courses.

Management Is Major

A fourth lesson learned by participants in the Urban Semester Program is that of managing a classroom of diverse learners. At the beginning of the semester, many of the students in this program are unsure of their discipline approaches, are shy about correcting students, and are hesitant to reprimand children for misbehavior because they do not want the students to dislike them. While this attitude is typical among all beginning teachers, the students in the Urban Semester Program soon learn to put aside their fears.

During their placements, the preservice teachers learned that their disciplinary methods were often different than those of the teachers in their classrooms. For example, the preservice teachers often worry about "being mean" when telling a student to do something, while the veteran urban teachers are more direct in their approaches and don't worry about winning popularity contests with their students. Also, the preservice teachers are often quiet and timid when correcting students, while the practicing teachers use a firmer and often louder voice. Finally, the veteran teachers are often more culturally responsive to the children and know more about the discipline techniques that work with children in an urban environment.

According to Lisa Delpit, the author of Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom (1995), this is indeed a normal reaction of teachers who are placed in a different culture than their own (p. 121). However, by learning about the discipline strategies that are used in urban settings, the preservice teachers soon learned that the behaviors of children are often reflective of their culture and are best dealt with directly. This approach also validates the research of Weinstein, Tomlinson-Clarke, and Curran (2004), who state that:

A lack of multicultural competence can exacerbate the difficulties that novice (and even more experienced teachers) have with classroom management. Definitions and expectations of appropriate behavior are culturally influenced, and conflicts are likely to occur when teachers and students come from different cultural backgrounds. (p. 26)

The authors also point out that very little is written in management texts about how to deal with cultural diversity and cultural conflict in classrooms. Our Urban Semester students learn about what works with a variety of children, and can practice these techniques on a daily basis. The professors also learn to teach more current methodology and processes that are culturally appropriate to the learners in this environment. By working daily with students and teachers of diverse backgrounds and cultures, our students learn a great deal about management that will assist them in their future teaching careers.

Conclusion

Overall, the immersion of preservice teachers into an urban setting has many benefits. The most important one, however, is learning the culture and pedagogy of the students whom one teaches. By working hand in hand with urban students, the preservice teachers learn lessons that cannot be taught in a book, and cannot be learned in a lecture hall. As Roman (1999a) states:

To have knowledge of another culture does not mean to be able to repeat one or two words in a student's language, nor is it to celebrate an activity or sing a song related to their culture. To acknowledge and respect is to be able to understand and apply this knowledge to everyday classroom activities. It is to be able to make changes in one's curriculum or pedagogy when the needs of the students have not been served. It is to be patient, tolerant, curious, creative, eager to learn, and most important, non-authoritarian with students. In order for a teacher to promote excellence in education, there has to be a real and honest connection between the needs of cultural values of teachers and students. (p. 144)

In brief, the Urban Semester Program helps preservice teachers make these connections to students, staff, and self. We know it is working when several students each year take jobs in urban settings and when the final journal entries appear different than the first. In Stephanie's case, the unease reflected in her initial journal entry changed to the following sentiment:

Now I know why I took these classes. Sure, I still see colors and differences, but now I know to celebrate them and assist the children in learning to the best of my abilities. I know that an urban school is where I belong and I am sure that I can make a difference!

References

Abdal-Haqq, I. (1998). Professional development schools: Weighing the evidence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Allen, E. (2003). Surviving and thriving in the beginning years as an urban educator. Bloomington, IN: 1st Books Library Publishers.

Delpit, L. (1995). Other people's children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York: The New Press.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2000). Fast facts (available at www.nces.ed.gov). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

Roman, L. (1999a). Cultural knowledge and culturally responsive pedagogy. In S. Nieto (Ed.), The light in their eyes: Creating multicultural learning communities (pp. 144-146). New York: Teachers College Press.

Roman, L. (1999b). Social class, language, and learning. In S. Nieto (Ed.), The light in their eyes: Creating multicultural learning communities (pp. 90-97). New York: Teachers College Press.

Scott, A. (1999). Reaction to ethnic notions. In S. Nieto (Ed.), The light in their eyes: Creating multicultural learning communities (pp. 22-32). New York: Teachers College Press.

Watzke, J. L. (2003). Longitudinal study of stages of beginning teacher development in a field-based teacher education program. The Teacher Educator, 38(3), 223-229.

Weinstein, C. S., Tomlinson-Clarke, S., & Curran, M. (2004). Toward a conception of culturally responsive classroom management. Journal of Teacher Education, 55(1), 25-38.

Nancy Armstrong Melser is Assistant Professor of Elementary Education, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.