A Different Sort of Pre-Professionalism

Usually when a Harvard undergraduate talks about his desire for starting a career right after graduation, he's not interested in social service. For Allen Carver '86, however, nothing could be further from the truth.

"I'm going to actually graduate with a job which is a strange thing at Harvard. But I'm going to be a teacher, that's the nice thing," says Carver, who is one of 13 Harvard students currently enrolled in the Undergraduate Teaching Education Program (UTEP).

The university-sponsored program, which started last fall, is Harvard's latest effort to certify undergraduates to teach in the nation's public high schools. Although the School of Education offered a master of arts degree in teaching back in the early '70s, UTEP is the first teacher training program directed specifically at Harvard undergrads.

The idea of redesigning the older program gained momentum after a speech three years ago by President Derek C. Bok. In his address, Bok said that Harvard needed to assume a more active role in public education, says Martha P. Leape, director of the Office of Career Services.

Other Ivy League schools such as Brown University have offered similar programs for a number of years, says Thomas E. Hassan, a UTEP advisor and a freshman proctor. At Harvard, students who complete the program will be able to teach high school in public school systems in 33 states including Massachusetts.

Applications to the four-part program are due in the spring and local teachers, like Diane Tabor, say the process has garnered some of the cream of Harvard's crop. An assistant principal at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School where UTEP students are currently observing classes, Tabor notes the value of the application process. "[UTEP] really has tried to seek out students who are intelligent and academically gifted," she says.

Education experts say the prospects for UTEP students upon graduation appear bright. "By 1992 we will need more than a million new teachers because of resignations, retirements, and increased enrollment," says Howard J. Carroll, a spokesman for the National Education Association.

"[Teachers in] math and science are always the greatest shortage because industry recruits them. But now there is a shortage [of high school teachers] in almost every area," Carroll says.

Besides traditional concentration requirements, students enrolled in UTEP must take two additional half-courses in adolescent psychology and classroom and educational issues. Program participants then must complete 60 hours of field work, in which they observe teachers at work at various area high schools.

After finishing this half the program, students then must complete 300 hours of in-class teaching at area high schools in the spring. While getting in-class teaching experience, students also must take two additional half-courses at the School of Education--a workload several students say is too demanding.

So far, several students participating have already dropped out of the first-year program. They say that the requirements of the program are too much to juggle in their senior year--between spending 300 hours of classroom time, taking classes and, perhaps, writing a thesis.

One participant who has dropped out, Sarah L. Szanton '88, says, "Given the set requirements of the Core [curriculum] and my major, I didn't want to use up my electives on the training program when I could get paid for it after college." The Afro-American Studies concentrator from Adams House says she has seen programs that pay students for the teaching they do at the same time they were taking courses for their instructor's certificate.

Szanton also says that the program lacks a strong support structure to help undergraduates get through the graduate level courses and extensive tutoring and teaching requirements.

"Because it's the first year of the program, there's not a very strong support structure yet," she says.

Szanton says she definitely intends to teach after she graduates. "I think it's a good idea for Harvard to make an easy channel to teaching in the public school, but the logistics just didn't work out for me."

Bradley R. Stamm '87, a Government concentrator who has dropped out of the program says, "They require you to spend four hours a day doing teaching while you're taking classes--if you're doing honors, there's no way."

"For someone who's sure they want to teach right after they graduate, it's good," he says.

While the requirements are numerous--particularly for the six seniors who have only one year to meet them--program standards are all based on Massachussesttes state guidelines, says Kay Merceth, director of UTEP. "The state is quite picky," she adds.

Despite the stringent requirements, UTEP has generated strong student interest, Leape comments. "The expression of interest has been so strong that we have no concern that we're going to have as many as we can handle." UTEP is expecting to receive as many as 100 applications for next fall, says Merceth.

Rindge and Latin's Tabor says she is also struck by the student interest in UTEP. "I haven't seen a lot of Harvard undergraduates express such an interest in public education in a long time. Frankly, I'm thrilled," she says.

Carroll notes that across the nation the trend is that fewer students are entering teacher education programs. "When you ask young students about going into to teaching you almost get laughed out of the place."

Most UTEP students do more smiling than laughing, however, when the question of teaching in public schools comes up.

"Public school teaching is an environment where you are in a position to help disadvantaged kids help themselves," says Lowell House resident Andres Fajardo '86.

"I'm really tired of being a passive student. It's exciting to go into the high schools and see people doing broad thinking for the first time," says Janet S. Bixby '86, who lives off campus.

"Teaching is a really good way to know you have made an impact on a certain amount of people. It's invigorating. There's always the hope that you can inspire [high school students]."

Carver, who is doing his field work at suburban Carlisle High School in Concord, has learned how hard it can be to fulfill that hope. "The teachers are alive, the material is alive, but the students aren't," he says.

Bixby, who has been observing teachers at Boston Latin and Cambridge's public high school, says he has especially benefited from the field service portion of the program. "I pay closer attention to discipline--how [teachers] control their class to create an environment to get their material across," she says.

Fajardo, who has been observing at Madison Park High School in the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury, has been concentrating on the particular difficulties of teaching at an inner city high school.

Recalling his first day at Madison Park, he says, "It was definitely very shocking, principally in the difference of the racial makeup [70 percent Black, 20 percent Hispanic, and 10 percent white] and everything we'd heard about Roxbury. The first thing we saw were two armed gaurds in front of the high school."

A graduate of a Palo Alto, Calif., Fajardo says he has noticed at Madison Park a "much higher priority on the personal side of teaching, being able to gain the respect of students and maintain discipline."

"Once discipline is established, there's a lot that can be taught," he says. "The most knowledgeable teachers may have the worst classroom environment because they don't have the personal skills."

Still, a major feature of Harvard's UTEP is its emphasis on subject competency. Most students seek certification from UTEP in their concentration. However someone who wishes to be certified in a field other than their concentration must take seven half-courses in the field.

Another unique aspect of Harvard's teacher training program is its treatment of the all-critical first year after graduation, known as the induction year, says Edward P. Droge, a UTEP advisor who monitors new teachers' progress. Harvard's program is designed to provide support during that crucial year. "We do not want to just let them go and say good luck. It separates us from the pack," Droge says.

Plans are being made to provide each UTEP graduate that goes on to teach with a picture phone so that impromptu teaching seminars can be held periodically.

A computer bulletin board network also will be set up to operate 24 hours a day to keep UTEP graduates in contact with Cambridge. Weekend conferences will be held at Harvard once a term during the first year to provide peer support and to maintain teaching skills, Droge says.

Doctoral candidates at the Education School will be hooked up with a UTEP graduate to maintain contact with Harvard's graduate program. Groups of UTEP graduates will also be matched with alumni from the master of arts in teaching program who will act as "mentors," Droge says.

While both Szanton and Stamm say that they intend to get their certificates in post-graduate programs, they also say they believe the program is a worthwhile innovation at Harvard.

"A lot of other schools should follow this example because I think they should pay more attention to education as a field that deserves excellence," Stamm says.

"I believe in the public school system--and it's in trouble," says Szanton. "The more well educated, dedicated teachers in the school system, the better it will be."

Gawain Kripke contributed to the reporting of this story.