Simultaneous renewal: when interns serve as substitutes.

Abstract

Our paper highlights ongoing research and program development related to service learning within a Professional Development School (PDS) Network. Teaching interns selected to serve as substitutes at their various school sites so their mentors could have up to 10 days and $650.00 worth of professional development time and stipends to engage in "simultaneous renewal" with university teacher educators and arts and science faculty.

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John Goodlad's broadly disseminated A Place Called School (1984) allowed university presidents, academic deans, teacher educators and school leaders to peer inside schools. What they saw were poorly supported k-12 classrooms in which teachers lectured and students listened and did their assignments--silently. Goodlad, however, did not stop with disseminating the vilifying results. He launched a National Network for Education Renewal (NNER) designed to radically restructure teacher education by changing the relationship between schools and universities to encourage simultaneous renewal. In his books, Teachers for Our Nation's Schools (1990), and in his Educational Renewal: Better Teachers, Better Schools (1994), Goodlad outlined his basic beliefs. He believes that better schools are predicated on better teachers who are teaching in schools that serve as a hub for learning, practicing, and developing.

To improve the quality of teachers, Goodlad recommended two initiatives that would work in tandem The first was the establishment of a fundamental philosophy of education based on the moral and political dimensions of teaching and learning in a democracy, sometimes referred to as an agenda for democracy. The second included the establishment of an institute designed to advance the philosophical goals through national forums, research support, and school university partnerships referred to as Professional Development Schools (PDS). Twenty postulates developed to guide philosophical inquiry as well as professional development were also used to guide the PDS network discussed in this paper (Goodlad, 1990,1994, 2002).

A basic premise of Goodlad's agenda is that arts and science faculty, education professors, and public school teachers must collaborate. They must find creative ways to bring about simultaneous renewal for all participants in a university and public school network that contracts to make teacher education a top priority. Much of the NNER restructuring efforts transpire within what are Goodlad referred to as Professional Development Schools (PDSs). Goodlad's 20 postulates provide a framework for university/school partners to begin the arduous task of restructuring so that fundamental democratic values and capacities are realized in America's public schools--with faculty and students. The postulate that is most applicable to this project is Postulate twenty:

   Those institutions and organizations that prepare the nation's
   teachers, authorize their right to teach, and employ them must
   fine-tune their individual and collaborative roles to support and
   sustain lifelong teaching careers characterized by professional
   growth, service, and satisfaction "(Goodlad, 1994, 72-93).

The purpose of this report is to share insights about a service learning project within a Goodlad-inspired collaboration that seeks simultaneous renewal. Senior interns at a land grant university are selecting to serve as substitute teachers so that they can provide up to 10 days of free and legal substitute teaching service for their respective mentors. This additional professional development time benefits all stakeholders: 1) site mentors have time to collaborate with university faculty, 2) interns engage in a service learning project that allows them to truly take charge of classrooms that they have come to know well through their apprenticeship; and 3) students and schools benefit from having a qualified substitute in the classroom. True to Service Learning fundamentals, the project is designed to help interns as much as site mentors--perhaps creating what Goodlad has aptly phrased simultaneous renewal.

As simple as it may seem, this Serving as Substitute project has evolved over several years and is surprisingly unprecedented in the literature of service learning or PDS initiatives. In reality, the systemic struggle to make this service project viable is reason for its authenticity. Teacher education programs are ofren entrenched in insular routines and authoritarian power structures. To have made a change that involves so many key players (interns, site mentors, teacher educators, field experience coordinators, university supervisors, self-selected arts and science faculty, principals, personnel directors of public schools, and state credentialing agencies) was no easy transformation- What follows is a 1) brief history of the Serving as Substitutes project, 2) portraits of interns serving as substitutes, 3) developments in the initiative, and 4) an analysis of the project's benefits, barriers and concerns.

History of Serving as Substitutes

Teacher interns do not typically serve as substitutes. This role has been followed dutifully for many years in many teacher education programs. Some college faculty believe that 1) interns are not ready to be in charge of an entire class until they sign a teaching contract, and 2) school administrators might abuse unpaid labor if this occurs. Substitutes for different systems are as varied as the resources within each system. Prestigious school systems train and pay their substitutes well and less well-financed systems struggle to find substitutes from a population of high school graduates. In some systems, even bus drivers serve as substitutes. Anyone who has a driver's license and does not have a criminal record can serve as one. Yet, student interns cannot. The irony in this situation is amazing because interns who have just completed a teacher education program are more qualified to substitute in the classroom where they did their internship than anyone on the substitute's list. Yet, those who propose changing the system are viewed suspiciously by teacher educators in and out of the school system.

Despite opposition, the concept of allowing substitutes to serve as interns moved forward. It gained momentum when interns were re-introduced to Service Learning (SL) in a PDS seminar. To refresh memories, the interns watched a video produced by the university's Service Learning Consortium. It shared in visual detail what SL was and how SL is infused in many university courses from building construction to psychology or horticulture. Interns also received an overview and a free book from the National Dropout Prevention Center's Linking Learning to Life series, entitled Upcountry Stories: Students Serve Through Writing (2001). This literature helped interns see how SL could occur in the context of an English classroom and provided an outline for the service learning process. Finally, the interns considered ways that they could provide service as interns and still acquire myriad professional skills and understandings. Then, interns considered a host of service learning projects such as serving in an after school tutoring program or building a website for future teachers on current teaching strategies. One option presented was Serving as Substitutes. Since the interns had spent considerable time with site mentors in their fall apprenticeships, some realized that they could truly help their mentors and also learn quite a bit about teaching by serving as substitutes. Six chose to serve as substitutes for their service learning project especially as they began to consider the kind of service site mentors provide.

For decades, teacher leaders have assisted in the preparation of interns by helping them 1) find the copying machine, 2) nudge reluctant students, 3) prepare unit designs or 4) write critical reflections about their growth as teachers. This service has occurred with little compensation--sometimes only $100.00. Realizing this injustice, they decided to "right" this wrong. The interns agreed to serve as substitutes to give their mentors time for professional development.

With undergraduate interns enlisted in the cause, the system began to respond. First, the Director of the Field Experiences reviewed state department of education, district and university guidelines. He then secured approvals from many school districts and agreed to distribute the necessary application materials. Superintendents and principals agreed that public school students might fare better under interns (versus regular substitutes) who knew the students, the curriculum and their actual teacher. More importantly, though, they began to calculate the fiscal contribution of such service. In the geographic region of the study, substitutes are hired for $65.00 a day. Ten days of substitute service from just one intern would add up to $650.00 worth of professional development support for each site mentor. Multiply that by up to five interns at any one site. As the interns slowly took responsibility for their site mentors' classrooms by serving as substitutes, the PDS coordinator for secondary education moved to the field to capture, via qualitative research, the benefits and limitations of this SL initiative.

Portraits of Interns Serving as Substitutes

Interns served as substitutes in a variety of English classes reflecting diverse learning styles and, as a result, grew as professionals. Six case studies affirm how interns evidenced essential pedagogical content and skills. One vignette reflects the richness of their experiences.

Chad stated in his professional teaching portfolio that he "wanted to be a teacher within the larger school mission." During his internship, he volunteered to serve as a pole vaulting coach for the track team as well as the master of ceremonies for the annual student talent show. When the intern's supervisor and director of the service learning project visited this intern-turned-substitute's classroom, she saw a promising intern who eventually was hired at his PDS site. Chad's lesson for the day focused on an introduction to a poetry unit. Unlike most substitute teachers who have little control over the arrangement of the classroom's physical environment, Chad had designed a motivational display.

On this particular day students gravitated toward "his" one wall to see who had excelled as writers and in what category. For example, Chad gave published recognition to students in every class for all kinds of writing skills. Some received the Best Peer Editor, others the Best Descriptive Writer award. With this backdrop of student recognition, the class seemed open to the intern's invitation: "What does the word 'poetry' mean to you?" "What comes to your mind when you hear this word? He then lights up the overhead projector, places a transparency on it and simply prints the word "poetry" with a red marker. He then circles it.

The intern had carefully designed his learning sequence to avoid loads of pedestrian and predictable one-line blurts. Students first brainstormed independently and quietly by making written lists. They then shared these in small groups. In one group, for example, the students had all sorts of insights about poetry. One soft spoken Appalachian youth shared how much he liked narrative poems about history, especially ones about the Civil War. He liked sharing that most of what he knew about poetry came from history books and his history classes. Another youth had attended a Poetry Jam in Detroit with his parents. Eventually, several admitted that they wrote poems on their computers.

As planned, the students made connections from their own personal worlds to the forthcoming unit. Very few substitutes, in contrast, have the expertise to help students bring to the fore prior knowledge about a subject of investigation. Chad's small groups then morphed into two larger ones before representatives from each group shared long lists of associations. The intern modeled his listening (and valuing of student responses) by publishing the students' responses on his glowing transparency. What was at first a text with one solitary word became one filled with the collective wisdom of the class' response to his opening cue. Chad effectively welcomed the diverse perspectives of his students as he built motivation for the poetry unit. He activated prior knowledge so students could made connections with the forthcoming poetry study. Chad then explained the purposes and scope of the American poetry unit. A substitute, in contrast, is rarely able to devise a meaningful unit since units take hours and expertise to design. Students were actively engaged in meaning-making and did not create discipline problems that often surface when substitutes appear. Chad's effective use of individual, small group and large group discussions made it easy for students to remain alert.

The other five secondary English substitutes at other PDS sites helped in many ways. Two interns helped stage a Renaissance Festival for the entire school as their mentors successfully prepared their National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (N'BPTS) portfolios. Another intern helped students explore the holocaust as her mentor nursed a damaged knee. While one site mentor worked to help the school receive a state Exemplary Writing Award, her intern developed and tested motivational strategies for learning vocabulary.

Developments in Teacher Education Program Related to Serving as Substitutes (SS)

The SS project director shared this data with colleagues who reexamined their initial resistance. The following year, 16 secondary English interns supported their site mentors and an early childhood professor chose to invite primary grade teacher interns to join the Serve as Substitutes project (N = 15).

The early childhood professor who had previous experience in a professional development school developed a new insight about the interns' efforts (Sluss & Bentley, 1998). Just the initial process of applying to be substitutes became more meaningful. Though interns were aware that schools were different, completing the forms to serve as substitutes enabled them to recognize the disparity between school systems based on economic realities. Postulate Eight of Goodlad's postulates states that, "Programs for the education of educators must be characterized by a socialization process through which candidates transcend their self-oriented student preoccupations to become more other-oriented in identifying with a culture of teaching (Goodlad, 1994, 72-)." Students who were stunned that a local affluent community paid substitutes over $160 per day while others paid less than $50. per day moved from focusing on self to focusing on the inequality of the systems and the subsequent results for students. Interns who had been previously been engaged in discussing their plans for the weekend soon resembled professional teachers as they discussed the basic unfairness of the lack of resources and the subsequent outcomes for the children. The layered discussion that followed led to envisionments of disparity and how that contrasted with Goodlad's agenda for democracy in public schools.

Benefits and Limitations of Serving as Substitutes

Clearly, public school students and interns are benefiting. Active student inquiry and meaning-making abounded in inviting English classrooms. Interns experienced democracy at work as they nurtured students to construe meaning and take responsibility for their learning. Other interns reflected on the inequalities of the broader public school system which led them to feel even more committed to their SL project. But what about the site mentors? How did they use their professional time?

Site mentors were able to attend extended professional PDS meetings during the school day. Together, university faculty and teacher leaders lunched, laughed, and developed strategies as they became professional buddies. Among the topics considered were these: 1) how to aid interns with critical reflections about student learning, 2) how to institutionalize a welcome and "welcome packet" for each intern at each school site, 3) how to best support interns by giving them the feedback they need, and most recently, 4) how to help interns share important state standards with students so that students can become more responsible for their own learning. Another example of collaboration occurred at a weekend retreat devoted to Goodlad's Agenda for Democracy. Site mentors, teacher educators and arts and science faculty debated Elshtain's Democracy on Trial (1995) and devised ways for incorporating the ideals of Goodlad's 20 postulates into their PDS network

SS also allowed site mentors to engage in professional development within their own school. They prepared for national certification, developed school-wide projects, attended local and national professional conferences, and made plans for next year's courses. Without SS, they could not engage in activities designed to improve and enrich their instruction. Again, this fits the agenda developed by Goodlad for school renewal. The project, Serving as Substitutes, has promise. Simultaneous renewal is transpiring as interns serve as substitutes. Public school students are getting high quality instruction from well-prepared interns. Interns, in turn, are getting the chance to further their skills. Site mentors are renewing themselves professionally. Teacher educators are able to meet with and get to know site mentors as they tap their valuable expertise. The teacher education program is changing to meet the challenges of this service project. Arts and science faculty are being re-invigorated as they debate Goodlad's democratic reform agenda with public school teachers. Students, public schools, teacher education programs, universities, and our democracy are reaping benefits as interns take charge of their professional development via meaningful professional service learning.

Reference

Elshtain, J. (1995). Democracy on trial. New York: Basic Books.

Galati, P. & B. Bailey (2001). Upcountry Stories: Students Serve Through Writing. Clemson, SC: National Dropout Prevention Center.

Goodlad, J. (1984). A place called school. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Goodlad, J. (1990). Teachers for our nation's schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Goodlad, J. (1994). Educational renewal: Better teachers, better schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Goodlad, J. (1994). The National Network for Educational Renewal. Phi Delta Kappan, 75 (8), p 632-38.

Goodlad, J. (2002). Teacher Education Research: The Outside and the Inside. Journal of Teacher Education, 53 (3), 216-21.

Osguthorpe, R., Harris, C., Fox Harris, M., & Black, S. (1995). Partner Schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Sluss, D. J., & Bentley, D. (1998). Constructing and reconstructing our views of professional development schools for early childhood education. The Journal of the Southeastern Regional Association of Teacher Educators 7 (2), 12-17.

Bailey is a Professor of Secondary English Education. She completed her doctoral studies in English Education at Virginia Tech. Sluss is an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education. She completed her doctoral studies in Child and Family Development at Virginia Tech.