Lesley University DigitalCommons@Lesley Lesley College Current Special Collections and Archives Spring 1987 Lesley College Current (Spring,1987) Lesley College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/lesley_current Recommended Citation Lesley College, "Lesley College Current (Spring,1987)" (1987). Lesley College Current. 29. https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/lesley_current/29 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Special Collections and Archives at DigitalCommons@Lesley. It has been accepted for inclusion in Lesley College Current by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Lesley. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Lesley College Spring 1987 Sun Jie of China with classmates in Graduate School's International Studies Class. INSIDE . .. • Teacher Education • Multicultural Perspectives • $1,000,000 NSF Grant • 25th Kindergarten Conference • College Provost Named • And More ... The Lesley College Spring 1987 Current Volume XII, No. 3 Teacher Education for the 21st Century LesleyReceives National Science Margaret A. McKenna r-oundationAward Task Force on Teaching as a Profes ­ tion's response is fragmented and Lesley is the proud recipient of a sion. Even for the seasoned veteran uncoordinated. $999,561 grant from the National who has pored over countless educa­ Federal programs like Head Start Science Foundation (NSF), a U.S. tional reform reports since Sputnik, the have been level funded or cut, and government agency that promotes current output of proposals seems over 2½ million children who are eligi­ research and education in science at unprecedented. ble for such programs are denied ac­ all levels of schooling. The award from What I would like to do is to step cess. And in many communities the influential agency will support back from the barrage of recommen­ schools are being asked to fill the void development of a model curriculum dations and take a look at the need by expanding their after-school pro­ for future middle school science and and prospects for change in how we grams and extending the school day mathematics teachers at Lesley. The educate the professionals who teach for kindergarten and nursery schools. program will be available for entering our children and in whose competence It doesn't take a prophet to recognize students in September. and success reside the future of our that these changes create new Nationwide a total of eight institu­ nation. Who are the children entering pressures on teachers, administrators, tions were selected (from an original our schools? What kinds of skills do and school boards. pool of 70) for NSF funding. The Student teacher supervised at placement site. their teachers need to have? How do One Massachusetts community we Lesley grant addresses that agency's we prepare teachers to face the surveyed listed almost 50 "desired "special concern" about the pivotal President McKenna gave the follow­ challenges of education for the 21st characteristics" for a superintendent. middle-school grades , a period when ing keynote address last fall on Cape century? They included such descriptions as lasting attitudes towards science and Cod at the 21st Annual Conference of All of these reports have a similar flexible, decisive, moderate, risk­ mathematics are formed in children. the Massachusetts Associations of point of departure: that our more oriented, tactful, and straightforward . Typically, educators agree, the migra­ School Committees and School technologically, politically, and In short, we're looking for someone tion of students away from science and Superintendents. economically complex world is produc­ who has the talents of "God on a mathematics begins in these early In April she was appointed to serve ing new demands on all levels of good day:' years. on the Massachusetts Boards of education. We have seen dramatic I'd add an additional qualification : Regents' and Education's Joint Task changes in our society. Our institutions Superintendents also need to be magi­ Force on Teacher Preparation . and their roles have changed. We look cians, able to produce new teachers different as a people. out of thin air. Nineteen eighty-four For the past four years education at The influx of women into the was the last year the supply of new all levels in the United States has workforce in the last decade has been teacher graduates met the nation's de­ come under intense scrutiny. Public dramatic . Over 52 percent of women mand . If present interest in teaching concern has been highly vocal, and are working full time, including over remains constant, in 1990 when the calls for reform have reached a fever­ half, or 20 million, mothers with country will be looking for one million pitch. We have been told we are a children under age six. We also are new elementary teachers, there will be "Nation at Risk;' and we have learned now beginning to see and will con­ a shortage of almost 350,000. to question the "Integrity of the Col­ tinue to be affected by a mini-boomlet Yet the current crop of reform lege Curriculum:' in pre -school and early primary studies provides little comfort to our More recently we have been grades. superintendents/magicians. The prob­ presented with three major national The number of families where both lem with the reports lies not with their studies on teachers: "A Call for parents work is increasing. In less than goals, which are laudable, but with the Change in Teacher Education;' a four years, 18 million more children gap between their rhetoric and the im­ manifesto by the National Commission will live in households where both mediate realities of the crisis at hand. for Excellence in Teacher Education; parents work full time. Over half the We all know that our current "Tomorrow's Teachers;' a report from children born this year will live in a teaching corps is aging - over 50 per­ the Holmes Group; and "A Nation single parent home before reaching cent of American teachers have 15 Linda Schulman, UG Division Head for Prepared: Teaching for the 21st Cen­ 18. Availability and quality of day care years of service or more. And almost Science. tury;' the report of the Carnegie Forum should be a top priority, yet the na- (Continued on page 2) President McKenna, when making the announcement, noted that the project "will create a model certification program for the College's Under­ Pamela Menke, Lesley'sFirst Provost graduate School." She added that "as a replicable national model, the project also addresses the critical demand for In January, Lesley appointed which we seek will be found at cam­ improved pre-high school science/ Pamela Glenn Menke as its first Pro­ puses like Lesley which have shown a math instruction." vost. Before taking the position, Dr. willingness to innovate, to blend theory Growing concern over current Menke was Director, Division of with practice, and to be responsive to school programs has recently Education Programs, National Endow­ the needs of students in society." prompted U.S. Education Secretary ment for the Humanities (NEH) in Prior to her tenure at NEH, Dr. William Bennett to call for a "revolu­ Washington, D.C. At NEH she was Menke served for five years as Provost tion" in such instruction. 'The Lesley responsible for nearly 15 million and Dean of Faculty and Professor of project," the President said, "is an affir­ dollars of grants to education, influenc­ Humanities at Colby-Sawyer College mation of the vibrancy of academic life ing that agency's contribution to the in New Hampshire. As Lesley's Pro­ in our nation's leading undergraduate educational reform agenda nationwide. vost, she will serve as chief academic departments of education:' She In welcoming her to campus Presi­ officer, overseeing its three schools - observed that national reports (by the dent McKenna noted that, "Dr. Menke the Undergraduate, the Graduate, and Holmes and Carnegie groups) which brings both academic breadth and Programs in Management for Business ignore the value of such programs are depth to her new assignments. She is and Industry - as well as other offices. "misguided:' Dr. Menke holds the M.A. and a seasoned administrator who has The major goal of the Lesley project Ph.D. in English from the University of championed educational excellence at is to develop a national model for both the institutional and the national North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her teacher preparation that gives signifi­ level:' academic research interests include cant attention to both content, For her own part Dr. Menke is en­ Nineteenth Century American thusiastic about her return to campus Literature and Southern American (Continued on page 2) life. "As we approach the year 2000 ;' Literature . She has been a consultant she observed, "the great challenge for to a variety of colleges and has lec­ America's colleges and universities is to tured widely on higher education find new paradigms for higher educa­ issues including curricular reform, tion in America ." She added , "Beyond personnel , management, and the role the reformer's rhetoric, the models of women in academe . Teacher Education for the 21st Century Teacher Education meet these difficult challenges . There the major reform reports provide a suf­ has been far too little discussion in the ficient framework for change . (Continued from page 1) reports concerning the different means However , we need to create the necessary to educate secondary school magnets which will draw talented one-half (45 percent) of our teachers teachers and elementar y school students into the field and keep our say they probably (32 percent) or teachers or between preparing best teachers in the classroom . More definitely (13 percent) would not traditional-age students and returning scholarship aid, better salaries , better become a teacher if they could start adult -learners interested in the profes­ working conditions are needed .