Nerves the Sorrows of Our Own Cities. Are Finding Jobs As Teachers in Inner-City Schools

DOCI. RENT RESUME ED 033 059 SP 003 071 By -Ashabranner. Brent- From the Peace Corps. A New Kind of Teacher. Pub Date Apr 68 Note-5p. Available from-Department of Elementary School Principals. National Education Assn.. 1201 16th St. N.W.. Washington, D.C. 20036 ($1.00) Journal Cif -The National Elementary Principal; v47 n5 p38 -42 Apr 1968 MRS Price ME -$025 HC Not Available from EDRS. Descriptors -Beginning Teachers. Teacher Certification. Teacher Orientation. Teacher Recruitment, *Teaching Experience. *Urban Teaching Identifiers *Peace Corps Many Peace Corps volunteers. returning tosee with new eyes and feel with new nerves the sorrows of our own cities. are finding jobs as teachers in inner-city schools. Of the 50 percent sent pverseas to teach,more than two thirds are young liberal arts graduates lacking orthodox teaching credentials. but by 1965many states began recruiting them. often giving salary credit for the two years abroad and grantingatleasttemporary teaching certificates. Cleveland.Philadelphia. and Washington. D.C.. initiated special programs of teaching and continuing education which included intensive orientation courses. supportive counseling from experienced teachers. and frequent meetings with consultants and subjectmatter specialists. Returned volunteers find the jobs rough. tough. and frustrating.in some ways more so than their overseas service. Many undergo cultural shock similarto that experienced overseas; some lack professional distance in dealing with students. or expect more of themselves than they can produce. But because improvisation is part of the Peace Corps way of life. they are constantly trying outnew ideas to handle their classes. The perception that they bring to their teachingcan be a positive influence in designing the tactics needed tocope with the disadvantaged. and if they can see their way through the first difficult months of adjustment. theypromise to make an invaluable contribution to this important problem. (JS) U.S. DEPARTMENT Of HEALTH, EDUCATION& WELFARE OFFICE Of EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCEDEXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE POINTS Of VIEW OR OPINIONS PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATINGU. OFFICIAL OFFICE Of EDUCATION STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT POSITION OR POLICY. PROCESS WITH MICROFICHE AND PUBLISHER'S PRICES. MICRO- FICHE REPRODUCTION ONLY. Permission to reproducethis copyrightedwork has been Center granted to the EducationalResources Information organization operatingunder contract (ERIC) and to the in- with the Office of Educationto reproduce documents only, cluded in the ERIC systemby means of microfiche of the micro- but this right is notconferred to any users fiche recbived fromthe ERIC DocumentReproduction Service. Furtherreproduction of anypart requires permission of thecopyright owner. FROM THE PEACE CORPS, ANEWKIND OF TEACHER BRENT ASHABRANNER Y the fall of 1967, more than 15,000 Peace overseas was. The job?Teaching in America's Corps Volunteers had completed their two long-neglected inner-city schools. Theyare learn- years of service abroad and returned to the ing, too, thatit takes more than good intentions United States. After havinggone abroad to make and a great deal of energy to teach in the slums. some small contribution to the two-thirds of the The qualities of personality and dedicationwhich world's population that is hungry and illiterate, took them abroad and kept themon the job there this new breed of American has turned witha stand them in good steadnow. frank awareness to our own country.The re- Fifty per cent of those Volunteers sentoverseas turned Volunteer has come home'to see withnew teach, although less than a thirdare experiences.. eyes and feel with new nerves the sorrows of dis- teachers or education majors. Mostare young crimination, poverty, and hopelessness inour own liberal arts graduates. The qualifications of these cities. "B.A. Generalists" are highideals,optimism, Many Volunteers grew up inmiddle-class energy,curiosity,andlearningability.They homes, went to school with their social peers, and thrive on seeking new ways to solve old problems. joined the Peace Corps after college.Said one They form the basis of the Peace Corps' working who is now back teaching in the inner city of his assumption that the American college graduate native Philadelphia, "It took me two years over- has a good foundation of ivhat to teach--his col- seas with the Peace Corps to see my own city." lege major or minorand that he has the ability Returned Peace Corps Volunteers all over the to learn how to teach. For them, teaching means country are plugging into areas of need that have 0 become very visible to them. They are finding Brent Ashabranner is Deputy Director of the Peace Corps. He was formerly Director of Peace Corps Volun- that there is a job here as challenging, frustrating, teerTraining and Education Advisor tooverseas aid 0 hectic, demanding, and rewarding as their service missions in Ethiopia, Libya, and Nigeria. 38 THE NATIONAL ELEMENTARY PRINCIPAL 4.% s- N k4 2- -- Nose '. the encouraging of responses from their students one Peace Corps Volunteer teacher in India. to the world around them and the nurturing of The resources that the Volunteer teacher overseas can apply to his job surpass the conventional t independence, initiative, and energy necessary to their and their country's development. Transmit- educational techniques.Culling from his own ting factual information becomes a secondary background, he can seek to develop elementary educational process. habits of trust and health, pragmatic thought, Ina recent speech on education,President optimism, geographical horizons which hint at a Julius Nyerere of East Africa's Republic of Tan- world beyond village and tribal boundaries, and, zania described his country's educational goal this as one staff member put it, "a senseof possibility." way: "It of no use to have the teachers giving The Volunteer usually must function in class- to their pupils the answers to existing problems rooms plagued by overcrowding, insufficientand in our nation. By the time the pupils are adults, irrelevant textbooks, bad discipline, and negative the problems will have changed.Instead, they attitudes stemming from his students' poor prepa- have to develop among their pupils a 'problem- ration, low physical stamina, and weak motiva- solving' capacityan ability to think, to reason, tion. He encounters, in short, conditions strikingly and to analyze the skills and information they similar to those in our own blighted inner-city have acquired to create new ideas and new solu- schools: the nation's number one problem in edu- tions to problems." cation today. Of the 20 per cent of returned Vol- Many Peace Corps teachers see their teaching unteers who teach, 31 per cent choose to work in jobs as springboards to additional activities. "So elementary schools. much needs to be done and the teacher is in an Four or five years ago, when the first Volunteer excellent position to exert his influence, to get teachers completed their service, they found that, people together to solve common problems," says lacking orthodox teaching credentials, they could VOL. XLVII NO. 5 APRIL 1968 39 not easily get jobs. The tide turned in 1965when ton, D.C., to place Volunteers inone of the city's the National Education Association's Commission disadvantaged secondary schools.They taught on Teacher Education and Professional Standards during the day and earned theirmasters-in-teach- urged schools to make a special effort to hire these ing degrees at night fromHoward University. young and eager people who had a unique experi- The Washington, D.C., publicschool system ence behind them and who offered a keenper- recently announced that it will sendan official on ception of the world before therm The Commis- a month-long tour of Africa this spring inan un- sion saw great educational value in Volunteers' precedented effort to recruit returningPeace Corps knowledge of developing lands andpeoples, their Volunteers to teach in the cityschools. experience with different cultures, their adapta- In 1965, Cleveland's schoolsystem joined with bility to new and unfamiliar conditions,their skill Western Reserve Universityto begin an experi- in applying knowledge to practical problems.It ment with 28 returned Volunteers. Theprogram urged that returned Volunteers "should be courted, offered a master's degree intwo years with courses not merely tolerated." designed especially around the plightof the dis- Immediately, states allover the Union began advantaged urbanchild.Volunteers' teaching to recruit former Volunteers, most givingsalary loads were freed fromart and physical education credit for the twoyears abroad and many grant- to allow more time for university work. ing temporary teaching certificates. Last summer, Philadelphia offereda blanket New Jersey's Commissionon Education de- invitation to returned Volunteersto teach in dis- clared that it wanted teachers "with the Peace advantaged schools. A brochure saidthat "all of Corps syndrome, readyto live in the community a sudden, inurban education,Philadelphiais in which they teach, so they feel it, they smell it, where the action is.The job here isas tough they taste it, they know thechildren, know the and as importantas any in America. The Phila- problems of the children, knowthe problems of delphia school leadershipwants you, as returning the parents; they are the teachers we must reach Volunteers, to help them with it.The school for." California went the furthestof all states by district

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