AN EXAMINAUON 0F TEACHING CONCERNS REPORTED BY SECONDARY STUDENT TEACHERS Thesis for the Degree of Ph. D. MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY JOHN G. McLEVlE 1970 Wmnmy LIBRARY W THE‘f'C hllChlgan State Universit' 9" 1 “www— This is to certify that the thesis entitled AN EXAMINATION OF TEACHING CONCERNS REPORTED BY SECONDARY STUDENT TEACHERS presented by John G. McLevie has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph.D. degree in Curriculum A (‘7‘? W {x _. ; ( .C; - (1; J1; KL L4“Q-J f/(Majdr professor Date August 13, 1970 0-169 .~ .v.-_.“_-_-‘,o-.‘ ABSTRACT AN EXAMINATION OF TEACHING CONCERNS REPORTED BY SECONDARY STUDENT TEACHERS BY John G. McLevie One hundred sixty-three secondary student teachers were asked to report anonymously their concerns during student teaching. The concerns were given in a free response statement and were gathered during the first week and the ninth week of a ten week teaching term. The responses were classified on a scale that rated the extent of pupil- oriented concern and personal-centered concern reported by the student teacher. The study was designed to generate hypotheses and to formulate recommendations for teacher education programs. It was therefore exploratory in aim and descriptive in nature. Forty-eight per cent of the respondents showed positive movement toward a greater concern for pupil learn- ing and growth during the nine week testing period. Twenty- one per cent of the respondents moved negatively on the scale toward personal-centered concerns during the same John G. McLevie period of time. Thirty-one per cent were awarded the same score by the coders in the ninth week as they were in the first week of student teaching. The concern most often expressed during the first week was related to adjusting to the new school situation. By the ninth week of student teaching nearly onerquarter of the student teachers reported concerns for the all-round development of their pupils. Another 17 per cent reported concern for techniques to ensure the cognitive learning of pupils, while 31 per cent continued to report concerns about adjusting to the school situation. Ten per cent reported concerns of a purely personal nature in the ninth week. An analysis of covariance was made between demographic variables using the ratings in the first week as the covari- able. The analysis was based upon changes in the rating of responses between the first week and the ninth week of the teaching term. The level of significance selected for this study was at the .05 level of significance. Variables which showed such differences were: sex, living accommodations, teaching experience before student teaching and type of placement. Variables in which no such difference was found Vwere: marital status, college year status, commuting distance over 40 miles daily, level of secondary school taught and subjects taught. Women student teachers gained in rating significantly more than did men student teachers. Student teachers living John G. McLevie with their parents gained significantly more than did those living with their spouses during student teaching. In the latter case, 82 per cent of those living with parents were women and this may have accounted for a large part of the difference found. Student teachers with no previous teaching experience gained in rating significantly more than did those with participation experience. The participation experience had not been part of a teacher education program and the quality therefore was not known. Groups of fewer than four student teachers placed in the one school showed a signifi- cantly greater gain in rating than did those placed in groups of seven to nine in one school or those placed in groups of more than nine in one school. The characteristics of adequate young adults and of effective teachers were derived from a review of literature and provided criteria for examining the free responses collected during the ninth week of student teaching. It was found that about one-quarter of the student teachers reported concerns characteristic of an adequate person as defined in the related literature, that is, one who has the immediate potential to become an effective teacher. Approx- imately one-half of the student teachers reported concerns which indicated a lack of ease in interpersonal relationships. Of this larger group, one in ten reported concerns which indicated that, at that time, they viewed student teaching as a personal threat which they did not feel adequate to meet. John G. McLevie A number of suggestions for further study were made, based upon the significant differences demonstrated in the individual growth needs of men student teachers and those placed in schools in groups of seven or more. Recommendations were made that teacher education programs should, through participation experiences and pre-student teaching seminars and post-student teaching seminars,be encouraged to regard student teaching as an integral part of the total program. In general, it was concluded, teacher education programs should provide for the continuous growth of adequate young adults as the basis for the acquisition of teaching skills. Continuing inter-personal contacts with teacher education faculty throughout a four year college program were seen as likely to contribute toward that end. AN EXAMINATION OF TEACHING CONCERNS REPORTED BY SECONDARY STUDENT TEACHERS BY _ v \\ \I John G2 McLevie A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Curriculum and Secondary Education College of Education 1970 CC) C0pyright by JOHN GILWELL MCLEVIE 1971 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The sound academic judgment and human heart of Dr. Troy Stearns was first experienced by the writer in Singapore twelve years ago. It proved necessary and worthwhile to voyage one—third of the way around the world from Hong Kong to be able to study under his guidance. The debt of gratitude the writer owes his Chairman cannot be lightly nor adequately expressed. Special thanks are owed to another outstanding teacher with the skill to help others to grow. Dr. Louise Sause was a Committee Member who was an inspiration to work with at all times. Appreciation is extended to Dr. David Heenan and to Dr. George Myers for their interest and support as Committee Members. Thanks are also extended to Dr. Howard Teitelbaum for guidance in statistical procedures. Sincere thanks are extended to my wife and three daughters. For Anne, Karen and Lynne it has been a heavy burden to have both their mother and their father writing dissertations. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii LIST OF TABLES O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0 v LIST OF FIGURES O I O O O I O O O O O O O O Vii LIST OF APPENDICES. . . . . . . . . . . . . viii Chapter I. THE PROBLEM AND THE PLAN FOR STUDY . . . . l The Need for this Study . . . . . . . l The Purpose of this Study. . . . . . . 4 The Design of this Study . . . . . . . 4 Analysis of the Data . . . . . . . . 6 Basic Assumptions . . . . . . . . . ,7 Definition of Terms. . . . . . . . . 8 Limitations of this Study. . . . . . . 9 Overview of this Study. . . . . . . . 10 II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE . . . . . . . . . 13 l-‘ w Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . PART I. CONCERNS OF STUDENT TEACHERS. . . 16 Some Surveys of Student Teacher Concerns. . 16 Some Specific Concerns of Student Teachers . 21 Individual Differences Among Student Teachers. . . . . . . . . . . . 36 "Readiness" to Teach . . . . . . . . 39 PART II. THE GROWTH OF THE EFFECTIVE STUDENT TEACHER. . . . . . . 43 Effective Teachers and Adequate PeOple . . 43 Understanding the Concerns of Young Adults . 58 Studies of Growth in Undergraduates . . . 64 Facilitating Undergraduate Growth . . . . 75 iii Chapter PART III. CHANGING SOCIAL PATTERNS . . Social Concerns and Personal DevelOpment. A New Pattern of Society . . . . . . "New" Concerns for "New" Teachers . . . I I I O METHODOLOGY 0 O O O O O I O O O 0 Overview of Chapter III . . Design of the Study. . . . Data Collection Procedures . Plan for the Analysis of Data Summary of the Chapter. . . C O O O O O O O O O O 0 IV. ANALYSIS OF DATA . . . . . . . . . First Week. . . . . . . . . . . Ninth Week. . . . . . . . . . . Changes in Concerns According to Demographic Groups . . . . . . The Concerns of Student Teachers in 1970. Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . V. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS . Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . Recommendations for Further Research . . Recommendations for Teacher Education Programs. . . . . . . . . . . BIBLIOGWHY. O O O O O O O O O C I O O APPENDICES iv Page 85 85 87 96 103 103 103 108 115 119 121 121 123 126 144 153 156 156 161 164 165 170 186 LIST OF TABLES Table Page 3.1 Secondary Student Teacher Allocations to Teaching Centers, Spring Term, 1970 . . . . 104 3.2 Distribution and Return of Questionnaires. . . 105 3.3 Inter-Coder Agreement . . . . . . . . . 113 3.4 Concerns Classified by Scores on the Fuller Case Concerns Code . . . . . . . . . . . 116 4.1 Ratings of Student Teacher Responses--First Week and Ninth Week of Student Teaching. . . 122 4.2 Amount of Movement of Student Teachers Between First Week and Ninth Week . . . . . . . 126 4.3 Analysis of Significant Demographic Variables . 128 4.4 Respondents Placed in Groups of Seven to Nine in One School to Compare Changes in Score Between Two Types of Placement. . . . . . 141 4.5 Respondents in a Cluster Placement of More than Nine Student Teachers in One School. To Show Ratings Awarded in the First and Ninth Week of Student Teaching. . . . . . . . 143 D.l Demographic Tables . . . . . . . . . . 226 E.1 Ratings Awarded in Week 1 and Week 9: Men and Women Student Teachers . . . . . . . . 230 E.2 Ratings Awarded in Week 1: Groups with Teaching Experience, Participation Experience and No Experience in Teaching . . . . . . . . 231 E.3 Ratings Awarded in Week 9 to Those Respondents Who Were Rated 2 in Week 1: Groups with ‘ Teaching Experience, Participation Experience and No Experience in Teaching . . . . . . 232 Table Page E.4 Ratings Awarded in Week 9: Groups with Teaching Experience, Participation Experience and No Experience in Teaching . . . . . . 233 E.5 Ratings Awarded in Week 1 and Week 9: Placement Groups of Fewer than 4, 4 to 6, 7 to 9 and more than 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Geographic Distribution of Selected Student Teaching Centers . . . . . . . . . . 224 vii Appendix LIST OF APPENDICES Page Questionnaire l and Questionnaire 2. . . . 187 The Adapted Fuller Case Concerns Code, with Instructions to Coders . . . . . . . 195 Selected Teaching Centers . . . . . . . 221 POpulation Distribution Tables by Demographic Groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Tables Relating to Chapter IV. . . . . . 229 Papers Referring to Teaching Clusters . . . 236 viii CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM AND THE PLAN FOR STUDY The Need for this Study An awareness of the need for this study gradually developed during six years of involvement with teacher education. A year's work with the Michigan State Univer— sity teacher education program was especially influential. The question that occurred again and again during “these six years was, "Why do student teachers give such \rarying estimations of the value of student teaching?" ESOme reported it was a positive and enjoyable learning eaxperience and often the change in their classroom teaching Clemonstrated professional growth. Yet others, in what arppeared to the observer to be an almost identical place- Iment situation, regarded the experience as largely negative. Some student teachers became defensive and less responsive t!) pupils while their fellows became more enthusiastic about their involvement in the school. Student teachers in a similar placement reported diufferent perceptions of the same principal, teachers and Pupils. One wondered why this should be so. Yet, it “"38 recalled, established classroom teachers also reported Vary different perceptions of other teachers, principals 1 and pupils. It might have appeared that something about the teaching act produced this enigma. But medical and legal practitioners had also reported situations in which similar stimuli were perceived differently by experts in the same field. Perhaps it had too often been forgotten that teachers, as well as medical and legal practitioners, were individuals and that their store of experience determined their perceptions in any particualr situation. The foundations for this study go back into another culture and embrace a six year span of time. The first five years were spent teaching and supervising Chinese, Indian and British secondary student teachers in the 'teacher education program at the University of Hong Kong. (the sixth year was spent as an Assistant Coordinator for sstudent teaching in a Michigan State University Off-campus SStudent Teaching Center. Even the wide cultural differences 1>etween the Crown Colony of Hong Kong and the State of bdichigan did not seem to change the student teachers' 1?erceptions. Nor did the variations in student teacher Sitatements seem to be much affected by the differences it! specific environment provided by an Anglo-Chinese gdfiammar school in a British Colony or by a Michigan Secondary school . The need to consider student teachers as individuals aIHi to make allowances for those differences has been reEferred to in the literature of teacher education. The literature has not always advised methods for meeting this need. Sometimes, in fact, it appears that authors were suggesting different ways to convert an individualistic student teacher into a prototype conception of a teacher. Yet differences between individuals may be viewed as positive attributes. The differing perceptions that student teachers hold of student teaching is a field of study that has not been widely researched. Yet reliable data is required if progress is to be made in encouraging different styles of teaching. Combs, former President of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, stated in 1965: If teacher education is to be concerned with changing student perceptions, we need clear definitions of what the perceptual organizations of effective teachers are like. We need a tremendous research effort to explore that question with the greatest possible speed. Already there is a quickening of interest in these matters, and it is probable that we shall have detailed experimental evidence in considerable quantities within the next four or five years. Combs' hopes have not yet been realized but studies Eiuch as this one may make some small contribution to the iiield. Because there was not sufficient evidence at the 'tiJne of the conception of this study to allow the formu- lirtion of meaningful hypotheses for in-depth investigation <3f5 student teacher perceptions, an exploratory approach appeared appropriate. From the data gathered perhaps some ‘ 1Arthur W. Combs, The Professional Education of TeEachers: A Perceptual Viewof Teacher Education Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1965): p. 19. evidence will be provided on which to generate hypotheses for further study. The Purpose of this Study The purpose of this study is to examine the concerns that student teachers report in the first week and in the ninth week of their student teaching term. Student teacher responses will be examined for indications of concern about pupil growth or concern that relates to a personal adjust— ment on the part of the student teacher. Any changes that may occur in the types of concern reported in the first week and in the ninth week of student teaching will be examined individually, as well as in groups formed from .selected demographic variables. From the analysis of these «soncerns and of the changes that occur in the types of (zoncern reported, recommendations will be made for further :research and for possible changes in student teacher programs. The Design of this Study _P_0pu1ation Studied The reported concerns of a group of 163 student tneachers fromMichigan State University teacher education Program were sought during Spring Term, 1970. The students Were selected from the six urban and suburban off-campus Sirudent teaching centers of Michigan State University2 which 1‘ladthe largest allocations of secondary student teachers 2Hereafter the Off-campus Student Teaching Centers of Michigan State University will be referred to simply ai‘ teaching centers, unless otherwise specified. for Spring Term. These centers were located in Detroit, Flint, Lansing (two centers), Livonia and Macomb.3 The total secondary student teacher population from each selected teaching center was included in the study. The Questionnaires Two questionnaires were designed to determine the concerns of student teachers. They were administered during the first week and again during the ninth week of a ten week student teaching term. Each questionnaire was divided into two sections. Section 1 sought demographic data while Section 2 consisted of a free response question. The demographic data sought in Section 1 was of three types : 1. Details of school placement. 2. Information about previous teaching experience. 3. Personal information such as marital status, accommodation and sex. Section 2 of each questionnaire consisted of a free Ixasponse question develOped by Fuller and Case.4 The ‘Séune free response question was used in each question- rlaire. This question asked the respondent to state \ 3The six teaching centers are briefly described and located on a map in Appendix C. 4The question is in Appendix A. It is taken from Ffisances Fuller and Carol Case, Concerns of Teachers (liesearch and Development Center for Teacher Education, UIliversity of Texas at Austin, unpublished, undated), p. 20. the concerns about teaching in the forefront of his thinking at the time of the administration of the questionnaire. Scoring of Questionnaire Responses The questionnaires were scored by two teams with two markers in each team. The scoring followed an adapta- tion of a code developed by Fuller and Case for use with their free response question.5 Analysis of Data The analysis of data examined the concerns about teaching reported in the first and again in the ninth week of student teaching. The ratings awarded by the coders to reSponses were discussed and changes in the types of «concerns were examined. The ratings were numerical and (each number represented a type of concern. The numerical Jratings enabled an analysis of covariance to be made on selected demographic groups. An analysis of covariance was used to explore whether 'the changes in types of reported concerns showed differing smatterns between the groups tested. The review of litera- tnire in Chapter II suggested a number of characteristics Mdiich are applied as criteria. These criteria are used to ixientify responses which indicate adequacy of person and effectiveness of teaching attitude. ‘ 5The code is in Appendix B. It is also taken from F1lller and Case, ibid., pp. 22-39. Recommendations From the analysis of data outlined, recommendations for furtherresearch will be made, as well as suggestions for inclusion in teacher education programs. Basic Assumptions This study assumed that: l. The perceptions that individual student teachers have of their personal and social concerns may be as significant to their teaching effectiveness as are their professional concerns. As a result, it was posited that educators who work with student teachers must work with personal and social concerns as well as with professional teaching concerns. An effective teacher must be able to call upon an adequate personality in his teaching. This appears to be necessary if his relationships with students and faculty are to be satisfactory. An adequate personality also seems necessary if teachers are to be able to effectively apply theory and knowledge of subject matter in a practical classroom situation. Although no such entity as a "complete" person- ality could ever develop anywhere, there are certain areas of personal and social competence in which individuals must show adequacy if they are to be considered effective teachers. Definition of Terms Teaching Cluster. Three elements of cluster placements require definition for this study. They were defined in a general discussion with Center Directors prior to a regular Directors' meeting and by reference to a position paper on cluster placements issued by the Student Teaching Office.6 1. Placement in a Cluster. A group of student teachers is placed in one school to teach as a team and to work with a similar number of classroom teachers. Normally, no assign- .ment of a student teacher to an individual supervising ‘teacher is made.7 2. Building Coordinator. The leader of a teaching czlnister in a school is the Building Coordinator. He is a regular teacher from that school working on a half-time basis while he is the Coordinator. Half of his regular Salary is paid by the university. 3. College Coordinator. Normally the College Coordi- Iiéitzor makes the administrative arrangements for cluster placements but does not deal directly with the student teachers placed in a cluster. Traditional Placement as used in this study refers 't‘3 the placement of one student teacher with one super- "iASing teacher. Although some variations are practised, \ 6The position paper is in Appendix F. 7In the Lansing School District, under the SERL project, e6lc:h student teacher is assigned to a supervising teacher. hree of the SERL clusters are included in this study; each ad six respondents in the population of the study. such as visits to other teachers' rooms, the student teacher regards himself as working with one teacher. The College Coordinator works directly with the student teacher and the supervising teacher in a traditional placement. Group Leader in this study refers to a member of the Teaching Center Faculty who conducts weekly seminars with student teachers. Previous Teachinngxperience is used in this study to denote a sole teaching responsibility for a full class of children over a period of one month or more. The period :need not be continuous, nor need the same class of children be involved. The majority of respondents placed in this category in this study had been substitute teachers. A annall group had been teachers of a Sunday School class with txrtal responsibility for a class for at least a year. Participation Experience was used broadly in this strudy to include teaching experiences aggregating less than one: month, the tutoring of pupils and assisting in the teaching or the coaching of groups of children. None of thE: respondents listed participation as a part of any courses in their teacher education program. Limitations of this Study 1. Student teachers from only one institution, a large state university, were selected for this study. Such students may represent a broad, but not a complete, cross-section of American secondary student teachers. 10 2. The pOpulation for this study is limited to those student teachers who, at the time of the study, were teaching secondary school subjects. Student teachers in Special education and in counseling are not included. 3. Mass data were used from student teachers in six selected urban and suburban teaching centers. Such data do not represent findings from the total program in teacher education at Michigan State University. 4. The rating code used in this study was designed to help in counseling student teachers. The purpose of this study was not oriented toward counseling. The code, with adaptations, proved appropriate for use, however, in classifying concerns and thus facilitated their examination. Because the code was thus adapted for a particular use, the findings of this study can not be applied to specific counseling functions. Overview of this Study Chapter I presents the need for this study and its PurFxbse. An outline of the design is also given, followed by basic assumptions. The Special terms used are defined and the limitations are set. The chapter closes with an over-‘View of the study. ..C IVA “do 11 Chapter II reviews selected literature under three headings. Part I: Reviews a selected list of the concerns of student teachers reported in the professional literature of teacher education. It also refers to evidence in the related areas of student teacher attitudes and anxieties. Part II: Discusses the characteristics of the effective teacher and of the adequate person. It draws upon professional teacher education as well as upon related fields of study concerned with the growth of the individual personality. Par1LIII: Refers to a number of publications that report studies of the personal development of college undergraduates. It also considers the ways in which college education can foster the growth of individuals. A cxonceptual frame of reference is developed in Sections 2 and 3 of the review of literature for application in the analysis of data. Chapter III describes the design of the study, the data collection procedures and the plan for analysis of data, The design reports on the population selected, the development of the questionnaires and the pilot administra- tic“; of the questionnaires. The data collection procedures desCr‘ibe the administration of the questionnaires, the code 12 used for scoring the free responses and the scoring proce- dures, including the selection and training of coders. The plan for analysis of data describes the ways in which reported concerns will be examined. Chapter IV analyzes the data by examining the concerns reported and by analyzing the rating scores awarded to each response. An analysis of covariance was used to explore whether the changes in types of reported concerns showed differing patterns between the groups tested. The charac- teristics of adequate persons and of effective teachers set out in the review of literature were applied as criteria to the reported concerns to complete the analysis. Chapter V summarizes the study and draws conclusions from the analysis of data. It makes recommendations for fixrther study and suggests principles for consideration in designing teacher education programs. CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE Introduction Student teaching may be viewed as being of positive value to the student teacher in develOping attitudes and skills about teaching, or it may be seen as of negative value. For some prospective teachers, practice teaching is an exhilarating and joyful, if challenging, experience which results in feelings of great achievement, personal growth, and satisfaction. For others it is a frightening, frustrating, and depressing time, resulting in feelings either of failure or personal inadequacy or of great anger, or both.l Sorenson and Halpert's statement refers to the experi- eruze of student teaching as producing feelings of personal grxowth on the one hand or of personal inadequacy on the otflier. It seems likely that between these extremes lie Inarry students, perhaps the majority, who feel a little of eacflu. They may have feelings of achievement on some OCCHasions but feelings of failure at others. Studies of Stxuient teacher concerns seek to explore these feelings as they are reflected upon at a particular point of time. Th1}; study selects the first few days and the last few days \ 1Garth Sorenson and Ruth Halpert, "Stress in Student Teaching," California Journal of Educational Research (January, 1968), p. 32. 13 14 of student teaching to ask student teachers to reflect upon their concerns in teaching. The review of literature is presented in three parts for the sake of clarity but each part is closely linked with the others. Part I reviews the concerns of student teachers. From this review it emerges that many of these concerns indicate individual differences between student teachers which need to be taken into account in the teacher education program. Part II dis- cusses the growth of the individual student teacher into anreffective teacher. It refers to disciplines other than :Education to gain clarification of what effective teachers and adequate persons appear to be like. Studies are enacted to illustrate ways of helping to nurture more (affective teachers. Part III arises from discussions in Part II that emphasize how closely the social and personal elements of the self are intertwined. Part III discusses scnne of the changing social patterns amongst which student teachers are growing up. The rapidly changing social enxnironment may be embedding in student teachers, major new Socxial concerns as a part of their personal develOpment. The plan of Chapter II is set out below: Part I: CONCERNS OF STUDENT TEACHERS 1. Some Surveys of Student Teacher Concerns 2. Some Specific Concerns of Student Teachers Part II: Part III: 4. 15 i. Interpersonal Relationships with the Supervising Teacher ii. Interpersonal Relationships with Students iii. Concerns About Personal Adequacy Individual Differences among Student Teachers "Readiness" to Teach THE GROWTH OF THE EFFECTIVE STUDENT TEACHER 5. Effective Teachers and Effective People 6. Understanding the Concerns of Young Adults 7. Studies of Growth in Undergraduates 8. Facilitating Undergraduate Growth CHANGING SOCIAL PATTERNS 9. 10. 11. Social Concerns and Personal Development A New Pattern of Society "New" Concerns for "New" Teachers. 16 PART I. CONCERNS OF STUDENT TEACHERS Some Surveys‘of Student Teacher Concerns There is a growing field of literature which surveys student teacher concerns and attitudes. A number of recent studies in this field have been selected for review. Henry administered a questionnaire of sixteen items selected from previous studies and from a review of the literature in teacher education. The items were all con- cerns and varied from an ineffective teaching voice to difficulty in providing for individual differences. Student teachers were asked to rate each item on a four gxoint scale of depth of concern. The three items most fre- Henry's in a study in four suburban Detroit districts. Ike asked the student teachers to rank those items in which they felt they needed more preparation and guidance. The respondents were ninety-five elementary and secondary student teachers. Both elementary and secondary groups ranked plan- nix“; for instruction as their major concern; handling 2Marvin A. Henry, "The Relationship of Difficulties ‘35 Student Teachers to Selected Aspects of the Professional Sequence of Education," The Teachers College Journal (November, 1963), 47-49. l7 classroom control was ranked in second place by the elemen- tary student teachers and fifth by the secondary group.3 Webb surveyed 197 beginning teachers in Kansas after the completion of their first twelve weeks of regular teaching. He drafted a questionnaire from a review of the literature and chose thirty-eight items, twenty of them identified with interpersonal relationships. Respondents in the teaching areas of mathematics, social studies, home economics, English, health and physical education and science, were asked to rank concerns on a three point scale. The largest number of concerns was marked by the health and physical education group; the least by the social studies group.4 The concerns most often reported were related to classroom instruction and management and were, in the view of the researcher, pupil rather than subject centered,5 although one wonders if the larger number of items included in the questionnaire relating to interpersonal relationships could have been an influential factor in this finding. The specific concern mentioned 3De Wayne Triplett, "Student Teachers Rank Their Needs," Michigan Education Journal (November, 1967), 13-14. 4John Rankin Webb, "A Study of the Relationship of Teaching Difficulties Reported by Beginning Secondary Teachers to Teacher-Pupil Attitudes and Other Variables" (unpublished Ed.D. dissertation, University of Arkansas, 1962), University Microfilms, p. 61. 51bid., p. 72. 18 most often was that of meeting the individual differences of pupils in classes. Those teachers sponsoring co- curricular activities reported significantly fewer dif— ficulties than did the other teachers, Webb reported. No significant relationship was demonstrated between the number of concerns and the number of pupils in a class.6 Campbell surveyed seventy-two student teachers at the University of Houston by means of two instruments on a pre-test and post-test basis, before and after their eighteen week student teaching experience. Each of the two instruments used was applied to four areas of student teaching concerns; Area I--Human relations with peers and professionals; Area 2-—Techniques in teaching; Area 3--The student teacher as a person; and Area 4--The student teacher-pupil relationship. The first instrument used was the Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory. It revealed that one out of every two student teachers in the sample grew more positive in their atti- tude toward the teaching situation, while approximately one student teacher in five showed negative change in attitude. Approximately one student in four showed no change throughout the eighteen week teaching experience.7 61bid., pp. 82-83. 7Gene Virginia Campbell, "A Descriptive Study of the Effects of Student Teaching upon Attitudes, Anxieties, and Perceived Problems of Student Teachers" (unpublished Ed.D. dissertation, University of Houston, 1968), University .Microfilms, p. iii. 19 The results from the second instrument, the Student Teacher Inventory, showed that the area of most concern was Area 2-- Techniques of teaching, with Area 4--student teacher-pupil relationship--the second area of concern.8 Fuller, Brown and Peck suggested that some of the items studied in surveys of student teacher concerns are symptoms of the student teacher's lack of awareness of his underlying problems: Many so called discipline problems, the bugaboo of new teachers, are symptoms of teacher incongruence, because children know what the teacher does not know: whether he is easy to fool, how much they can 'get away with,‘ what will confuse or annoy him. 9 Fuller, Brown and Peck are members of a recent research team at the University of Texas at Austin who have worked under grants from the United States Office of Education, the Hogg Foundation of Mental Health and the National Institute of Mental Health in a series of studies of teaching concerns.10 They classified the main concerns of women student teachers into four main categories: 81bid., pp. 125-127. 9Frances Fuller, Oliver H. Brown and Robert F. Peck, Creating Climates for Growth (The University of Texas at Austin: The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, 1967), p. 9. 10Robert F. Peck and Oliver H. Brown, R & D Center for Teacher Education (The University of Texas at Austin: The ResearchOand‘DevelOpment Center for Teacher Education, n.d.), p. 1. 20 1. Where the student teachers feel they stand in the school in which they are working. This includes how they see themselves fitting into the principal's view of his school, how they consider the faculty views student teachers, and where they think pupils place them as students or teachers. 2. How adequate the student teacher feels herself to be in the classroom setting. 3. How well the student teacher feels she understands the behavior of individual children. 4. How the student teacher feels she is being evaluated. Fuller, Brown and Peck report that these four concerns seem to need early resolution for, until they are resolved, the student teachers find it difficult to look outward and involve themselves in what the child is learning. Stratemeyer and Lindsey list personalized concerns which agree closely with those reported in the studies of Henry, Webb, Campbell and Fuller gt_al. "Will I be able to do what is expected of me? What will these pupils be like? Will they like me and respond to my guidance? Will I be able to maintain desired standards of behavior? What will happen if I make a mistake?"11 llFlorence B. Stratemeyer and Margaret Lindsey, working With Student Teachers (Teachers College, Columbia University: Bureau of Publications, 1958), p. 126. 21 Halpert reported from a study carried out in Los Angeles that most students feel stress as a temporary state at the beginning of their student teaching but that as many as twenty per cent felt stress continuously throughout the experience.12 She found that students reporting high stress also reported decreased interest in teaching as a career and that more men reported consistently higher stress than did the women in her survey. Halpert found that the major sources of reported stress in her study were task dis- agreement with the supervising teacher, personality dis- agreements with the training teacher, and conflict with pupils. Some Specific Concerns of Student Teachers The concerns of student teachers have been discussed to this point as a part of general surveys but a number of specific concerns merit attention. These specific concerns will be presented in three broad categories: 1. Interpersonal Relationships with the Supervising Teacher. 2. Interpersonal Relationships with Students. 3. Concerns about Personal Adequacy. 12Ruth Levin Halpert, "A Study of the Sources, Mani- festations, and Magnitude of Stress Among Student Teachers at UCLA" (unpublished Ed.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1966). .Quoted from Dissertation Abstracts: The Humanities and Social Sciences, Vol. 27, No. 8 (February, 1967), p. 2359A. 22 Interpersonal Relationships with the SuperviEifig Teacher Stratemeyer and Lindsey claim that any lack of personal relationship between student teacher and supervising teacher is a matter of major concern for the student teacher.13 Yamamoto, gt_al, report that in interviews at an eastern university with a group of elementary and secondary student teachers after completion of their student teaching there was much discussion about the poor, defensive, and often lax qualities of supervision and the busy paper work demanded of student teachers.14 Thompson asked forty-seven female elementary students, twenty-five female secondary students and fifty-three male secondary students to recall the anxieties they had felt prior to student teaching and during student teaching and to try to identify the origins of these anxieties. He defined anxiety as a "mixture of fear, apprehension and hOpe referred to the future."15 The major anxiety experienced prior to student teaching was identified as, "What will the supervising 13Stratemeyer and Lindsey, op. cit., p. 133. 14Kaoru Yamamoto, Douglas J. Pederson, Roger Opdahl, Harry Dangel, Charles E. Townsend, Marilyn Berger Paleologos, Alva N. Smith, "As They See It: Culling Impressions from Teachers in Preparation," Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. XX, No. 4 (Winter, 1969), p. 473. 15Michael L. Thompson, "Identifying Anxieties Experienced by Student Teachers," Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. XIV, No. 4 (December, 1963), P. 435. 23 teacher expect of me?" Of the female elementary student teachers 91.4 per cent reported this concern, while 72 per cent of the female secondary student teachers also reported this anxiety and 66 per cent of the male secondary student teachers reported it.16 When Sorenson asked secondary student teachers in fifteen Los Angeles schools to list the things they would tell their best friend in order to help him to get a grade of 'A' from their present supervising teacher, they showed a good deal of perspicacity. Fifty per cent of the student teachers recommended listening to the suggestions of the supervising teachers and then following those suggestions without question, a further nineteen per cent advised 'cultivating' the supervising teacher and a further nine per cent said do not express too many ideas of your own.17 A major concern for student teachers is the adapta- tion of their teaching methods to the philOSOphy by which the supervising teacher is already operating with the class. The class needs continuity and the supervising teacher and the student teacher must cooperate closely to avoid raising undue anxieties on the part of the pupils or . . 8 the student teacher, or even of the superViSing teacher.1 16Ibid., p. 439. l7Garth Sorenson, "What is Learned in Practice Teaching," Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. XVIII, No. 2 (Summer, 19675, pp. I74-I75. 18 Stratemeyer and Lindsey, Op. cit., p. 149. 24 Yet the task may prove more difficult than it sounds at first for Brown and Vickery discovered a number of dif- ferences in the way student teachers and supervising teachers regard teaching.19 Supervising teachers were found to be much less in sympathy with Deweyan theory and to be significantly more dogmatic in their attitudes than were college faculty members who had taught student teachers. The biggest gap in beliefs about teaching in the public schools was found to exist between the principals of the schools tested and the supervising teachers in those same schools. As principals often address student teachers on their arrival in the school, student teachers may readily become caught between the lack of congruence between the principals, the supervising teachers and the classes they attend at college. Brown and Vickery also found a large gap between stated beliefs about educational philOSOphy and educational practice among supervising teachers and sug- gested, "It would seem desirable to select or train co- Operating teachers who were congruent in their beliefs."20 Brown and Vickery's conclusions were based upon testing in six colleges, including two large state univer- sities. The testing consisted of questionnaires based upon concepts inherent in Dewey's educational theories. 19Bob Burton Brown and Tom Rusk Vickery, "The Belief Gap in Teacher Education," Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. XVIII, No. 4 (Winter, 1967), pp. 4174421. ' 2°Ibid., p. 421. 25 Deiulio claimed that some supervising teachers are insecure about what is expected of them by the college coordinator.21 Purpel reported "There can be no question that the number one problem facing student teaching today is the critical shortage of qualified supervisors."22 Sarason, Davidson and Blatt criticize the type of supervision provided for many student teachers in that the supervising teachers are not chosen because they have had training in supervision methods but because they are con- sidered models of classroom teaching.23 Such an emphasis, it is suggested, focuses more on the technical or engineering aspects of teaching (for example, lesson plans, special projects, curriculum materials) than on such matters as the arousal of curiosity, eliciting the contribu- tion of children's ideas, and the recognition of individual differences among children in terms of 24 how this must influence the techniques of teaching. It may not be surprising that student teachers develOp concerns over their supervising teacher and how to relate to him, for a student teacher is often caught in a lack of reticulation between the school system and the college of 21Anthony M. Deiulio, "Problems of Student Teachers," The American Teacher Magazine (December, 1961), p. 10. 22David E. Purpel, "Student Teaching," Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. XVIII, No. 1 (Spring, 1967), p. 22. 23Seymour B. Sarason, Kenneth S. Davidson and Burton Blatt, The Preparation of Teachers—~An Unstgdied Problem in Education (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1962), p. 35. 24 Ibid., p. 8. 26 education. Recently a conference was convened to discuss this problem by the Association of Classroom Teachers (November 23-29, l969).25 It was pointed out at the conference that supervising teachers are not normally involved in the planning of the teacher education sequence and therefore their perceptions of their role with student teachers may be quite different from the perceptions of the supervising teacher's role held by the college of education. The conference also recognized that supervising teachers may not be familiar with innova- tive teaching strategies. "The result is a perpetuation of limited teaching styles and a frustrating conflict between what the student teacher learns in his teaching methods course and what he is required or permitted to do during 26 his student-teaching experience." Kohl suggests that the problem may lie with the selection of the teachers for a supervising role. The teachers who are picked to supervise student teaching are often the most confident and representa- tive teachers in a school system. Usually they have things well under control in their classes and have easy authoritarian manners. . . . They are content with the way things are.27 25The Association of Classroom Teachers, Report of the Classroom Teachers National Study Conferenee on the Role of the Classroom—Tsadfier in the Student Teachieg Pro ram (Washington, D.C.: Association ofOClassroom Teac ers, N.E.A., 1970). 26Ibid., p. 2. 27Kohl, op. cit., pp. 101-102. 27 Interpersonal Relationships with Students A concern that it may prove difficult to relate to classroom pupils is reported from England as well as from American teacher education sources. Cope, in interviewing student teachers in Bristol, England, before they went out student teaching, noted that a striking feature of their apprehension was concern about their relationship with children and a fear that children would not respond to them.28 It does not appear that contact with children during student teaching does a great deal to mitigate this concern about relating to pupils for Travers, Rabinowitz and Nemovicher claimed that, in general, the anxieties that exist at the beginning of the period of student teaching exist at the end.29 Travers et_ei. reached this conclusion as the result of a study of 120 student teachers through a pre-test and post- test sentence completion test. The two major concerns that remained unmitigated were discipline and whether the student teachers were liked by their pupils. Travers thought the relative absence of change in these areas of concern was especially discouraging for "Modern educational theory 28Edith COpe, "Students and School Practice," mimeo- graphed report of the Bristol University Institute of Education, n.d., p. 26. 29Robert M. W. Travers, William Rabinowitz and Elinore Nemovicher, "The Anxieties of a Group of Student Teachers," Educational Administration and Sepervision, Vol. 38 (1952), p. 374. 28 holds that discipline is viewed as a problem primarily by those teachers who are preoccupied with enforcing rigid regimentation."3o Kohl also felt that the listing of discipline as a concern reflects a particular point of view about a teacher as an authoritarian person. Throughout his most recent book Kohl speaks of his belief that such a view of teaching is a mistaken one. "The problems of motivation and discipline are intricately involved with the authoritarian role of the teacher."31 Morrison and Romoser also link concerns about disci— pline with the personality of the teacher and with lack of security in relating to pupils. These two writers admin- istered Horn's and Morrison's Traditional Scale to 101 students on entry to the West Texas State University teacher education program. Their study indicated that students who rated as 'traditional' may "tend to be too anxious to respond appropriately in unfamiliar circumstances. Another inter- pretation is that the less intelligent individual sees no means of meeting problems in classroom management other than 32 by progressively stricter control." They suggested that 30Ibid., p. 371. 3J'Herbert R. Kohl, The Open Classroom (New York: Vintage Books, 1969). P. 77? 32W. Lee Morrison and R. C. Romoser, "'Traditional' Classroom Attitudes, The A.C.T. and the 16 P.F.," Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 60, No. 7 (March, 1967), p. 327. If 29 some insecure teachers seek to correct flaws in their "world" by exerting strict control over their pupils. Dutton suggests that it is not only some student teachers who fail to develop the ability to relate with pupils or to regard children positively. Dutton tested ninety-one elementary student teachers at the University of California at Los Angeles on the Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory, the Pittsburgh revision of the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale and the Anxiety Differential. By pre-testing and post-testing, Dutton found that both the highly anxious and the non-anxious student teachers changed their attitudes negatively toward children.33 Weinstock and Peccolo suggested that there is a con- nection between difficulty in relating to pupils and con- cern about subject matter for they felt, "An emphasis on 34 Their subject matter may strain classroom rapport." conclusion emerged from a study at Kansas State University in which they found a significant negative shift during student teaching in scores on the Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory among 59 elementary and 97 secondary student teachers. 33Wilbur H. Dutton, "Attitude Change of Elementary School Student Teachers and Anxiety," Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 55, No. 8 (May, 1962), pp. 385-382. 34Henry R. Weinstock and Charles M. Peccolo, "Do Students' Ideas and Attitudes Survive Practice Teaching?" The Elementarnychool Journal (January, 1970), pp. 210-218. 30 Concerns About Personal Adequacy The need that student teachers feel to be accepted has been referred to by Schunk, together with the related concern of feeling like a teacher rather than like a student and, she adds, "He needs a permissive atmosphere where he can release his tensions and feel free to do his best work and at the same time become more analytical of himself and his work."35 The student teachers' expectations and aspirations are all tied up with his needs, which are the same basic needs of any person at any stage of development-— to he wanted, to belong, to be accepted, to be con- fident, to be successful, to achieve. . . . The way he feels about himself may cause tensions and pres- sures which will affect the kind of work he does.36 Greenberg said that teachers must face personal concerns for teachers most often have to react spontaneously to child behavior and then the 'real' self comes through.37 Jersild, one of the major contributors to the field of understanding and resolving of personal anxieties among teachers and student teachers, believes 35Bernadene Schunk, "Understanding the Needs of Student Teachers," Thirpy-eighth Yeerbook of the Aesocia- tion for Spudent Teachihfl (Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown ana CO. ' InC. , 1959) ' pp. 42-440 36Ibid., p. 46. 37Herbert M. Greenberg, Teachingiwith Feeling (New York: Pegasus, 1969), p. 201. 31 The basic problems the beginning teacher faces are primarily subjective in nature--personal and psycho- logical rather than strictly professional or academic. If teachers are to meet these problems, to realize their potentialities in working with pupils, it is essential for them to grow in self-understanding. But this aspect of preparation and growth is almost completely neglected in our teacher education programs. 3 In a study based upon personal interviews of 80 of his graduate students and upon what he estimates to be thousands of personal contacts with teachers throughout his career,39 Jersild identified the two major concerns of teachers to be their personal search for meaning in the learning process and their personal feelings of anxiety.40 Jersild reports that teachers listed further personal con- cerns as loneliness, hostility, the freedom to accept their feelings, attitudes toward authority, sex, feelings of homelessness and hopelessness and distress at the discrepancy between their 'real' self and the expectations of others.41 Jersild identifies two types of anxiety to which teachers and others are subject: (1) That which is part 38Arthur T. Jersild, "Behold the Beginner," The Real World of the Beginnipg Teacher (Washington, D. C.: National Comm1531on on Teacher Education and Professional Standards of the National Education Association of the United States, 1966), p. 49. 39Arthur T. Jersild, When Teachers Face Themselves (New York: Teachers College, Co1umbia University, Teachers College Press, 1955), p. 13. 4OIbid., p. 7. 411bid., p. 18. 32 of the price of being alive and is therefore a natural 42 This would seem to be anxiety to be faced and accepted. similar to the existential anxiety of which Tillich spoke when he said anxiety is "The state in which a being is 43 (2) That which arises aware of its possible nonbeing." from the maintaining of pretenses. Teachers need to learn to face such forms of anxiety.44 In this type of anxiety may lie the roots of the concern symptoms that reveal them- selves in the fear of handling classroom control or of gaining the liking of pupils referred to earlier in this study. Teachers would be more ready to turn their atten- tion to understanding their pupils, suggests Jersild, if they could face their anxiety and loneliness and make con- tact with other human beings through acceptance of their own emotions and those of other peOple.45 At the University of Illinois Auger studied student teachers' self perceptions of their 'actual' and 'ideal' occupational characteristics and measured changes in these during an eight week student teaching experience. From a review of the literature, he derived four factors of change in self-perceptions posited as likely to occur 42Ibid., p. 26. 43Paul Tillich, The Courage To Be (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952), p. 35} 44Jersild, op. cit., 1955, p. 26. 451bid., p. 83. 33 during student teaching, to which he added a fifth factor of his own. The five factors were: (1) conflict between cultural values outside the classroom, (2) conflict between role expectations and personal dispositions as a classroom teacher, (3) conflict between the student teacher's view of his role and the views of his role that the supervising teacher and college coordinator hold, (4) conflict between personal needs and the demands of teaching and preparation. Auger added to these (5) conflict between what the student teacher expected student teaching to be like and what it is in reality.46 The effect of conflict within the person and of anxiety about what is expected seems to underlie Will's suggestion that student teachers may play a role of being someone other than themselves. Will referred to the necessity for helping student teachers to individually different professional and personal growth when he pointed out, "Some teachers blot out the self and others to a large extent, simulate the desired behavior, and by 'playing the game' see themselves through student teaching with a . . 47 minimum of real encounter." 46Ferris Keith Auger, "Student Teaching Perceptions of Student Teachers, Cooperating Teachers, and College Supervisors" (unpublished Ed.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, 1966). University Microfilms. 47Richard Y. Will, "The Education of the Teacher as a Person," Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. XVIII, No. 4 (Winter, 1967), p. 473. 34 A possible explanation for a student teacher's effort to "blot out the self" may have been offered by Jersild when he said, "An outpouring of feeling would be frightening to teachers who have rigidly schooled them- selves never to let the hurts and tender emotions of their own lives show in public."48 Such teachers are handicapped for "where the self is uninvolved teaching is an empty formality."49 May also took up the paralyzing effect on educational processes of what he terms "neurotic anxiety" for it "blocks off awareness."50 When awareness is thus blocked off a person may come to fear the tremendous technological power "that surges up every moment about him to dwarf 51 and creates in the overwhelmingly his puny efforts" individual a loss of significance and a sense of apathy. This sense of apathy then tempts man to use technology as a way of avoiding the confronting of his own anxiety, alienation and loneliness. To May,the task of the teacher is to widen a student's consciousness by helping him to develop sensitivity and a depth of perception.52 48Jersild, 0p. cit., 1955, p. 69. 49Ibid., p. 79. 50Rollo May, Psychology and the Human Dilemma (New York: Van Nostrand, 1967), p. 41} 51 Ibid., p. 36. SZIbid. 35 Some teacher education curricula may not help a student teacher to widen his consciousness if Muro and Denton's evaluation of a number of teacher education curricula is accurate. "The modern curriculum with its maze of professional courses, is too often designed and Operated in a fashion better suited to produce technicians than helping persons."53 Muro's conclusions were based upon an analysis of tape recordings of meetings of two volunteer counselling groups of student teachers at the College of Education at the University of Maine. If they have wide application, as seems likely, the curricula for teacher education will need to consider ways of helping student teachers to a deeper perception of themselves and to what some writers refer to as becoming an effective teacher. As the perceptions of individuals vary widely from one person to another, an awareness of the individual differences between student teachers would seem to be a starting point in a search for ways to assist student teachers to become more effective as persons and as teachers. 53James J. Muro and Gordon M. Denton, "Expressed Concerns of Teacher Education Students in Counselling Groups," Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. XIX, No. 4 (Winter, 1968), PP. 463-470. 36 Individual Differences Among Student Teachers A number of authors suggest that teacher education has taken too little account of the extent of individual differ- ences among student teachers. In its usual form the teacher education program assumes that the same knowledge is appropriate for all teachers-to-be and can be effectively communi- cated; that all teachers can learn and use the same skills; that there will be some kind of an automatic integration process taking place once the teacher faces children.54 McGeoch is convinced that the only way teachers can be prepared to provide for the individual differences they will meet among classroom pupils is to provide experiences in being part of such a program during their pre-service preparation: "If we really put into practice all we know about human growth and develOpment we would have a radically different program of teacher education."55 Denemark stated: "We must begin to recognize the need to prepare many different kinds of individuals with different levels of commitment, talent and potential for a wide range of instructional roles."56 Not only do 54Rodney A. Clark and Walcott H. Beatty, "The Con- ceptual Framework for Teacher Education," The Association for Student Teaching, Forty-Sixth Yearbook (Dubuque, Iowa: wm. C.’Brown Co., Inc., 1967), p. 59. 55Dorothy M. McGeoch, Direct Experiences in Teacher Education (New York: Teachers C011ege, ColumBia,’l953), p.’I82. 6George Denemark, "Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers," in a collection entitled "Teachers We Need," Theory into Practice (Columbus, Ohio: The College of EducaEIOn, The 0510 State University, 1968), p. 253. 37 student teachers naturally bring to their teaching differing individual characteristics, but such differences should be treasured by the teaching profession. "Differing styles of teaching and differing personalities among instructors are required to reach the varied interests and needs of today's children and youth, and the good teacher should be thought of in terms of multiple models."57 One of the most thorough considerations of the need for educators and experienced teachers to be conscious of individual differences among student teachers is provided by Stratemeyer and Lindsey.58 They conceive of student teachers during their teacher education as passing through an important develOpment phase with both personal and professional dimensions. "College students engaged in laboratory experiences have just reached adulthood or are struggling seriously with develOpmental tasks which characterize the transition from adolescence to adulthood."59 Each student is seen as unique by these two authors, and thus he requires laboratory experiences selected to suit him.60 57Ibid., p. 254. 58Stratemeyer and Lindsey, 0p. cit. 59Ibid., p. 9. 601bid., p. 47. 38 Agreement with this concept came from a conference of leading educators who met at Santa Barbara to discuss teacher growth when they reported Teachers are individuals who differ tremendously in strengths and weaknesses, in intellectual back- grounds, and in responses to their teaching situa- tion. Yet we tend in our teacher education efforts to treat them in clusters. . . . Teachers have been inundated with prescriptions for proper pedagogical behavior.51 Taylor and McKean's study suggested that independent approaches do not seem to avail a student teacher in search of high evaluations for his coursework.62 The two researchers worked with eighty-seven juniors taking methods of secondary education and professional education coursesi at the University of Colorado and tested them on the Dimensions of Divergent Thinking instrument developed by the Teacher Education Project at San Francisco State College. Sixteen per cent of the highest divergent thinkers were compared with fifteen per cent of the lowest divergent thinkers in the group. There was no significant difference in the drOpout rate nor between the frequency of distribu- tion of either high or low divergent thinkers according to teaching majors. The major distinction between the two groups emerged during student teaching where a difference 61Center for Coordinated Education, The Nurture of Teacher Growth (University of California at Santa Barbara, Center for Coordinated Education, May, 1966), p. 4. 62Bob L. Taylor and Robert C. McKean, "Divergent Thinkers and Teacher Education," The Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 61, No. 9 (May-June, 1968). 39 significant at the .05 level was apparent for the low divergent thinkers ranked higher as a group in the evalua- tions they were given for their student teaching.63 Where such a situation holds true one may suspect that the individual needs of student teachers are not being met satisfactorily. Schunk commented that some student teachers have certain needs at the beginning of the student teaching experience, some needs that will continue throughout the experience and some new ones that will arise during the course of their student teaching. "Each student teacher has a variety of personal and pro- fessional needs which are closely related."64 Schunk's statement suggests that as the needs of student teachers change they may move through developmental stages of learning to become more effective teachers. At various times it may appear that the student teacher is ready to move on to a further stage and student teaching could be posited as a most important stage in this develop- ment. The concept of personal "readiness to teach" appears to be a useful one here. "Readiness" to Teach Readiness to teach may be posited as a position reached as a result of personality growth, fostered by 63Ibid., pp. 417-418. 64Schunk, op. cit., p. 41. 4O experiences in the general education and professional education sections of the undergraduate curriculum. There seems to be evidence that to assign student teachers to a teaching experience because they have completed a certain number of courses may not sufficiently take into account individual differences. A certain level of personal maturity seems necessary before a student teacher can assume the responsibilities of relating with children or of forging personal and professional relationships with teachers in the schools. Fuller e£_el. reported that "until the teachers' own security needs had been satisfied, they did not involve themselves deeply with the needs of their pupils."65 Fuller, Pilgrim and Freeland wrote of this "readiness" as a "capacity to cope" and defined it broadly as "Mental 66 Health." "It seemed that when the individual student teacher became more secure, it became possible for him to 67 The purpose of the consider the welfare of others." research of these authors was to discover ways to meet the concerns and develOpmental tasks of prospective teachers before their student teaching began, "so as to push the point of readiness to learn to teach back to the beginning 65Fuller, Brown and Peck, op. cit., p. 17. 6 . Frances Fuller, Geneva Hanna Pilgrim and Alma M. Freeland, The Association for StudentTeaching Porgy: Sixth Yearbook, Chapter VII (Ddbuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown, , p. . 67Ibid., p. 160. 41 instead of at the end, of student teaching." This effort was made through offering a course in develOpmental educa- tional psychology with observation work with children in school situations, supplemented by counselling for attitudes or uncertainties revealed by a battery of instru- ments. The readiness tasks for the first stage are defined by these authors as those that help the student to explore the realities of the school environment through observation techniques and hypothesis testing in problem solving classroom situations. The focus is on how to make decisions on helping individual children and how to com- municate with children. The tasks of the second develop- mental stage are defined as helping student teachers to estimate their impact on individuals and groups as a basis. for confidence in class control. The third stage deals with understanding the behavior of individual children and their learning capabilities through case studies. Stage four tasks involve contacts, throughout two semesters, with a teacher in a school to familiarize the student teacher with evaluation procedures.68 In a further publication Fuller has collaborated with other researchers in the Austin Center to explain a sequence of teacher growth which posits six develOpmental stages on the basis of data derived from stated student teacher concerns, instrumental measurements and the coding of film 68Ibid., pp. 174—178. 42 sequences.69 The concept underlying this work is that the helping of teachers and student teachers to clarify self- perceptions and personal goals in teaching, may be an important preparation for the second phase of teaching defined as learning how to instruct. Some student teachers appear to be capable of clarifying their own perceptions and goals without assistance from college faculty but others seem to benefit from direct individual help.70 At the very least, the college faculty must be aware of the range of differences to be found among the student teachers with whom they are working. As Greenberg stressed, "Each teacher then, is different from all other teachers, from all teachers living now, and all teachers who have ever lived or will ever live. Each teacher is a very special human being, a unique person."71 It is to this "very special human being" that this study will now address itself in the belief that special and effective teachers can be develOped only on the base of special and adequate human beings. 69Frances Fuller, Robert F. Peck, Oliver H. Brown, Shirley L. Manaker, Meda M. White, and Donald J. Veldman, Effects of Personalized Feedback During Teacher Pre ara- tion onITeacher PersonaIity and Teadhing Behavior ( eport Series No. 4, The Researdh and Development Center for Teacher Education: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin Public Schools, Texas Education Agency, n.d.), p. 298. 7oIbid., p. 307. 71Greenberg, op. cit., p. 210. 43 PART II. THE GROWTH OF THE EFFECTIVE STUDENT TEACHER Effective Teachers and Adeqeate People In discussing anxiety, Jersild and May both spoke of teachers and of their special function of helping students, but they also spoke of teachers as peOple who had to face their own personal and existential concerns. This con— ception of teachers as fully functioning individuals was emphasized in the writings of Combs. "Producing an effective teacher, we have concluded, is not so much a task of teach- ing him how to teach as helping him become a teacher, a very human question indeed."72 In this view, the concerns of teachers are to be seen as the concerns of individual peOple for, "A good teacher is first and foremost a person, and this fact is the most 73 important and determining thing about him." Again Combs tells us, "Teacher education must be an intensely human process designed to involve the student deeply and personally."74 72The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1970 Yearbook, Arthur W. Combs, ed. (Washing- tOn, D. C.: I976}, p0 Iago 73Arthur W. Combs, The Professionel Education of Teachers.rA Pereeptual View of Teacher Preparation (Boston: Allyn and Bacon Inc., 1965), p. 6. 74Ibid., p. 28. 44 Combs claimed that if student teachers are "to acquire the kinds of beliefs characteristic of effective professional workers," psychology and the problem of the nature of man must be an integral part of the curriculum.75 Such a curriculum would facilitate the student's discovery of himself as a more adequate person and teacher.76 Biber and Winsor would subscribe to such a curriculum for they suggested a set of goals for the training of graduate teachers that center upon knowledge about peeple. Their seven goals relevant to the educational process are the develOping of (1) a positive feeling toward the self, (2) a realistic perception of self and others, (3) a relatedness to people, (4) a relatedness to the environment, (5) feelings of independence, (6) curiosity and creativity, and (7) a strength for recovery and for c0ping. "Learning to be a teacher is seen as a dynamic process of self- realization through which the student is enabled to enact a new vocational role with strength and satisfaction."77 The goals of Taylor are similar for he suggested that there should be no prescribed sequence of teacher education professional courses but rather that the material 75Ibid., p. 63. 761bid., p. 77. 77Barbara Biber and Charlotte B. Winsor, The Associa- tion for Student Teaching Forty-Sixth Yearbook, Chapter V, (Dubuque, Idwa: Wm. C. Brown, 1967), pp. 84-85. 45 be available to the student at the appropriate stage in his development.78 The objectives of Taylor's teacher education program are to (1) help each student to develop his own unique self, (2) help to deepen an understanding of children in each student, (3) deepen an understanding of the school as a community and its commitment to the larger community, (4) help students to acquire skills and knowledge for proficient teaching and (5) stimulate moti- vation to investigate liberal studies and continue their own education. Taylor's premise for such individually centered learning is that "the growth of a young person from a college student to a professional teacher is a deeply personal becoming."79 Taylor's recommendations were based upon an explora- tory study at San Francisco State College under the auspices of the National Institute of Mental Health. The program aimed to help the individual understand himself and to build upon his unique strengths for the staff believed that "the behavior of a teacher is a function of 80 The aim of teacher education was his own personality." seen thus, "Teacher education is a period of personal ferment and development. This is a period of 7830b L. Taylor, The Associapion for Student Teaching Forty-Sixth Yearbook, Chapter VI (Dubuque, Iowa: wm. C. Brown, 19677, p. 122. 791bid.. pp. 121-123. 801bid., p. 150. 46 reorganization and change directed at the student becoming a teacher, a mature person functioning effectively."81 The curriculum to help bring about this goal "was not the preconceived organization of an instructor, for it was the concerns of each student."82 This view of a teacher education program would suggest that any student teacher's concerns about his competence indicate a less than adequate self-concept for "behavior is only a symptom of internal states of feeling, seeing, believing and understanding."83 The interpersonal rela— tionship between a supervising teacher and a student teacher assumes a vital significance in such a frame of reference for unfruitful concerns need never arise when supervisors help to establish a non-threatening relation- ship with their student teacher.84 Combs averred that professional education is not a discipline in its own right and that the focus of teacher education should be on the nature and condition of the learner.85 Such is also the emphasis of the 1962 Yearbook 8lipid. 821bid., p. 144. 83Combs, 0p. cit., p. 107. 84Ibid., p. 108. 851bid., p. 113. 47 of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum DevelOp- ment.86 The inner origins of some of the major concerns expressed by student teachers may be made clearer by the writings of Combs, Maslow, Rogers and Kelley, the con- tributors to the 1962 Yearbook to which reference has just been made. Kelley took up the question that Jersild and May referred to as the anxiety of existential thinking,when he spoke of the involvement of the individual in the changes that take place in him as a person. The indi- vidual becomes involved in directing his own becoming87 and such a creative involvement is what gives the individ- ual a "reason to be."88 Kelley's concept is akin to Buber's inspirational, "I mean the existence of an autonomous instinct, which cannot be derived from others, whose appropriate name seems to me to be the 'originator instinct.‘ Man, the child of man, wants to make things, it wants to be the subject of this event of production."89 86The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1962 Yearbook, Arthur W. Combs, ed. (Washington, D.C.: THe Association, 1962). 87Earl C. Kelley, The Association for Supervision and Curriculum DevelOpment, 1962 Yearbook, Chapter II, p. 20. 881bid., p. 17. 9Martin Buber, Between Man and Man, trans. by Ronald Gregor Smith (London: Kegan Paul, 1947), p. 85. 48 The uniqueness of the individual self is encompassed by Kelley as an accumulated experiential background on top of a unique biological structure, built almost entirely in relationship with others.90 Only such a concept of the self seems t0*fit what Kelley described as the "becoming- but-never-arriving world,"91 a concept which seems to match the anthrOpOlogical and sociological concept Of a protean society. The concept of a protean society helps to illuminate the social aspects Of change that have involved college young people in the need to find new ways to adapt to a more complex way of living. Useem stated "With the pro- longation of human life in the midst Of constant innovation and new knowledge, a person is compelled to make learning an intrinsic part of his self."92 For "To COpe with our segmentalized social identity compels the individual to both find and maintain his own self-identity. While this obviously implies more risks, it also Opens the prospects for maximum development Of the self."93 9°Ke11ey, 0p. cit., p. 8. 911bid., p. 10. 92John Useem, "American Society as a High Civiliza- tion: Implications for Educators." Address to 18th National Teacher Education and Professional Standards Conference, Ohio State University, June, 1963. Mimeographed, p. 14. 93Ibid., p. 15. 49 The problems Of coping with the new requirements of society are referred to as protean in the way they suddenly arise, sometimes as suddenly drop away, and like the Greek; Old Man of the Sea, Proteus, take on new form by which it is difficult to recognize them.94 Wheelis described the impact Of rapid change this way, What is new is not the fact that social character is changing; this has always been in process. What is new is its occurrence at a more rapid rate than ever before and, thereby, our awareness of the change as it is taking p1ace.95 The develOping self that Kelley posited now needs to learn how to handle the protean change of which it is a part. The teaching Of the past will not do, said Mead for, "We must create new models for adults who can teach their children not what to learn, but how to learn and not what they should be committed to, but the value of commitment."96 And again Mead says, "The young must ask the questions that we would never think to ask."97 94Ibid., p. 8. 95Allen Wheelis, The Quest for Identity (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., Inc., 1958), p. 84. 96Margaret Mead, Culture and Commitment (New York: The American Museum Of Natural History, 1970), p. 92. 97Ibid., p. 95. 50 Maslow defined the need for the asking Of such questions when he reported, "Americans have learned that political democracy and economic prosperity do not in themselves solve any Of the basic value problems. There is no place else to turn but inward, to the self, as the 98 locus Of values." He saw potential for mankind in this view for, "A new vision is emerging Of the possibilities of man and his destiny, and its implications are many."99 Maslow said Individuals develop from an essential and intrinsic inner nature which is in part hereditary; this raw material is acted upon by significant others, by the environment and by the person himself. This inner self has its own dynamic force that is the urge to grow, the pressure for self actualization and so self improvement is possible.100 "Life is a continual series Of choices for the individual in which a main determinant Of choice is the person as he already is. . . . Every person is, in part, 101 In this sense 'his own project,‘ and makes himself." one can speak Of "growth toward self-actualization." The student teacher then becomes a participant in his own process of development and Dandes spoke Of this process in the growth Of a teacher when he suggested that 98Abraham Maslow, "Existential Psychology-~What's in it for Us?" in Existential Psychology, ed. by Rollo May (New York: Random House, I969), p. 51. 99A. H. Maslow, The Association for Supervision and Curriculum DevelOpment, 1962 Yearbook, Chapter IV (Washington, D. C.: The ASSOOIation), p. 34. 100Ibid., p. 35. 101Ibid., p. 36. 51 educators "Who are concerned with increasing the effective- ness of teachers should include in college curricula experiences which will aid the potential teacher to 'actualize himself more fully.”102 Plourde also referred to inner motivation toward adequacy and self-actualization when he suggested that each student teacher "Wishes to succeed and receive some kind Of acknowledgment from himself first, then from his class and from the society. That motivation helps the student teacher to guide himself."103 This does not mean, Plourde pointed out, that the student teacher will be self- taught, but that he will play a central role in his own formation.104 Maslow spoke of "maturity" as the ability to "transcend the deficiency needs." This concept can help in a consideration of student teacher concerns. He dis- tinguished maturity in the cognitive area as D cognition and B cognition. D cognition represents deficiency needs of the individual such as the gratifying of personal needs and overcoming those things that tend to frustrate those 102Herbert M. Dandes, "Psychological Health and Teaching Effectiveness," Journal Of Teacher Education, Vol. XVII, NO. 3 (Fall, 1968). p. 305. 103Michael A. Plourde, "The Emphasis on the Person in the Student Teaching Situation," Program and Papers Of the Second WorkshOp for Directors andOCoIIege Supervisors OTIStudent Teachipg, ed. by Clyde W. Dow (East Lansing: Michigan State University). (Mimeographed), p. 27. 104 Ibid., p. 28. 52 needs; B cognition represents "Being" cognition in which the individual sees an Object in its own right and not just as a satisfier or frustrator of his own needs. B congition is a sign of maturity although elements Of D cognition remain in every individual. B cognition enables Objective descriptions of reality and is fostered by psychological health.105 Using Maslow's definition Of maturity as B cognition, the student teacher with that capacity can perceive beyond personal-centered deficiency concerns to those concerns relating to fostering the growth of his pupils. Maslow's suggestion that D cog- nition concerns continue to be felt even when maturity is attained suggests that even mature teachers functioning with concern for their pupils, will be concerned from time to time about personal deficiency needs. As he pointed out, "Self-actualization does not mean a transcendence of all human problems."106 Aspy applied Maslow's concept Of levels Of human needs to the teaching situation, "Those who wish to promote a person's growth from one level Of need to another should 107 concentrate on meeting the current needs of that person." Aspy reported "The majority of our student teachers are 1051bid., pp. 40-41. 106Ibid., p. 45. 107David N. Aspy, "Maslow and Teachers in Training," Journal Of Teacher Education, Vol. XX, NO. 3 (Fall, 1969), p. 304. ' 53 Operating in fear as they enter their final phase of teacher training."108 Aspy further pointed out that this is Maslow's safety level (D cognition level) and yet student teachers are being graded on their ability to give to others. "Many teacher trainees are Operating at a survival level, in the sense that their problems are very immediate and involve coping rather than growing."109 Aspy concludes, "There is not much evidence to support the hOpe that the teacher will develOp into the best teacher he can become, since the present school situation seems oriented toward teacher survival rather than teacher growth."110 Wilhelms gave support to this view when he said, Every experienced supervisor (college coordinator) knows that student teaching has all the classic stress effects of narrowing perception and shutting down free communication. We must help each student to value his unique self and use it as an instrument Of teaching. . . . Many outstanding candidates for teaching have felt forced to play the hypocrite, to behave artificially, and ultimately to distort themselves to fit the pervasive, vague ideal.111 lOBIbid. 1091bid., p. 305. lloIbid., p. 308. 111Fred T. Wilhelms, The Association for Student Teaching, Forty-Sixth Yearbook, Chapter X (Dubuque, Iowa: Wm C. Brown CO., Inc., 1967), pp. 243-244. 54 Rogers is another writer who stressed the role Of the self in the individual's own growth. He made applica- tion of the concept into education when he said, "I have come to feel that the only learning which significantly influences behavior is self-discovered, self-apprOpriated learning."112 May Spoke of the individual concerns that may arise from any denial Of this self-actualization process, "The central core of modern man's 'neuroses,‘ it may be fairly said, is the undermining Of his experience Of himself as responsible, the sapping of his will and ability to make decisions."113 Rogers further stressed the need for a person to be fully Open to the experiences he has for, "Self and per- sonality emerge from experience."114 Those persons who are thus Open to their own experiences have the confidence to take actions and to be themselves for "They are able to trust their total organismic reaction to a new situation."115 In colloquial terms we Speak of peOple 'being themselves,‘ thus teachers who can act without reservations about 112Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person (Boston: Houghton Mifflin CO., 1961), p. 276. 113Rollo May, Love and Will (New York: W. W. Norton and CO., Inc., 1969), p. 184. 114Carl R. Rogers, The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1962 Yearbook, Chapter III, p. 26. llSIbid., p. 27. 55 themselves when relating to their pupils, do not have to make distinctions between what Rogers terms the "role self" and the "real self," between a defensive facade and their real feelings.116 With a belief in his own capacities, a teacher‘s "reactions may be trusted to be positive, forward-moving, constructive" and he will relate well with his pupils and fellow faculty members for "one Of his own deepest needs is for affiliation and communication with others."]'17 ROgers was Speaking here of situations which one can as readily apply to student teacher concerns about relation- ships with pupils and teachers. Buber Spoke of this same type of acceptance Of one- self as enabling the teacher tO accept others and to relate with pupils. The teacher sees them crouching at the desks, indiscriminately flung together, the misshapen and the well- proportioned, animal faces, empty faces, and noble faces in indiscriminate confusion, like the presence of the created universe; the glance Of the educator accepts and receives them all.1 Rogers makes a graphic contrast between (1) the teacher who is "a person to his students, not a faceless embodiment Of a curricular requirement nor a sterile tube through which knowledge is passed from one generation to 116Ibid., p. 29. 117Ibid., p. 30. 118Buber, Op. cit., p. 94. 56 the next"119 and (2) with the teachers who "Show themselves to their pupils simply as roles. It is quite customary for teachers rather consciously to put on the mask, the role, the facade, of being a teacher, and to wear this facade all day, removing it only when they have left the school at night."120 Student teachers who display concerns about how to behave in a classroom may see their teaching as such a. role rather than as seeing themselves in relationship with pupils. Melby Spoke Of the teacher who can be authentically himself when he pointed out, "The central problem is that Of growing the prospective teacher into a warm, perceptive, understanding individual who is an artist in working with learners, be they children or adults."121 Clark and Beatty spoke of the teacher who accepted people whether they were his peers or children for he had achieved faith in himself to the point where, "He is free to enter any teacher-pupil relationship undefensively."122 119Rogers, op. cit., p. 44. lzoIbid. 121Ernest O. Melby, "Teacher Education for a Chang- ing Society," The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Teacher Education, Seventeenth Yearbook (Washington, D.C.: The Association, 19647, p. 74. 122Clark and Beatty, Op. cit., p. 71. 57 David and Kuhn asserted that the teacher who accepted and respected himself was better able to relate to the learner because he was not hampered by concerns for him- self.123 One is reminded of the concerns reported by student teachers which indicate a fear that they may not be able tO relate to their pupils. The concepts of Combs, Kelley, Rogers and Maslow help to clarify goals for developing self-actualizing young people who can become effective teachers. Their concepts also point some Specific paths along which teacher education curricula may travel, but a detailed curriculum requires some evidence Of experimental data or pilot projects. There is a dearth of such evidence in teacher education despite the expressed hOpe Of Combs: If teacher education is to be concerned with changing student perceptions, we need clear defini- tions Of what the perceptual organizations Of effective teachers are like. We need a tremendous research effort to explore that question with the greatest possible speed. This is coming. Already there is a quickening of interest in these matters, and it is probable that we shall have detailed experimental evidence in considerable quantities within the next four or five years.124 123Alma Williams David and Jeanne M. Kuhn, The Association for Student'Teaching, Ferty-Second Yearbook Chapter II (Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown CO., Inc., 1963), p. 21. 124Combs, 1965, Op. cit., p. 19. 58 Understanding the Concerns Of Young Adults It would be pleasing to report that Combs' hOpes had been realized in the five years since he wrote those words, but the situation is not so sanguine. There has been research in teacher education but little published material bears evidence Of findings in the perceptual organizations of effective teachers. Considerable research has been directed into the personal growth of college undergraduate students, however, and in view of the fact that student teachers are part of the undergraduate population these findings seem appropriate to this study. Most student teachers Spend the first two years of their college life as an integral part Of the undergraduate general education program. This provides the base for professional teacher education courses in the junior and senior years. The significance of these studies Of undergraduates is that for the first time empirical data on a large scale, like that prOphesied by Combs for teacher education, has been Obtained within the area of total personal development of the college undergraduate. The developmental studies Of college undergraduates derive extensively from the branch Of developmental and personality psychology and psychotherapy that has been stimulated in recent years by the thinking Of Erickson. His conception Of young adults as belonging to a 59 distinctive develOpmental phase rather than as being in an extended late adolescent stage is helpful to the study Of the growth of college students. Erikson posited developmental stages that continue into maturity and old age and thus provide for an individual's continually develOping personality.125 Although the individual interacts with his environment, including other people, there is also an inner growth. The healthy child, given a reasonable amount of guidance, can be trusted to Obey the inner laws Of develOpment, laws which create a succession of potentialities for significant interaction with those who tend him.12 Erikson's fifth stage, that Of adolescence, is the stage in which an individual struggles between role dif- fusion and identity formation. Those who display suf- ficient 'ego strength' from the successful completion of earlier stages are able tO face this difficult period of 127 identity crisis positively. To achieve a sense of identity, the young person must integrate all Of his pre- vious identifications and self-images, with their Often confusing diversity, into a restructured self in terms Of 128 an "anticipated future," although this identity may 125David Elkind, "Erik Erikson's Eight Stages Of Man," New York Times Magazine, April 5, 1970, p. 112. 126Erik H. Erikson, "Identity and the Life Cycle," Psychological Issues, 1959, NO. 1, p. 52. 127Richard I. Evans, Dialogpewith Erik Erikson (New York: E. P. Dutton and CO., Inc., 19697} P. 31. 128 Ibid., p. 36. 60 be seriously challenged by later pressures on the individual.129 "Only a firm sense Of inner identity marks the end of the adolescent process"130 but this sense of identity carries with it an increased capacity to 'dO well' accord- ing to a person's own standards and those Of others who are Significant to him. Such a resolution allows the individual to move into the young adult developmental phase in which the intimacy-isolation dichotomy may be resolved. "Intimacy is really the ability to fuse your identity with somebody else's without fear that you're going to lose something yourself."131 A scholar, whose works are supplementary in some way tO those Of Erikson, is White. His findings on per- sonality develOpment and the concept Of ee££_emphasize the 132 unity Of the organism in its growth and the interaction Of the organism with its interpersonal environment: "A person builds up his conception of himself out Of the ideas he perceives other people to have about him."133 129Ibid., p. 41. 13oErik H. Erikson, IdentiEy. Youth and Crisis (New York: W. W. Norton and CO., Inc., 1968), p. 88. 131 Evans, Op. cit., p. 48. 132Robert W. White, Lives in Progress: A Study Of the Natural Growth of Personalipy (New York: The Dryden Press, 1952), p.71212 133 Ibid. 61 White saw changes in the individual as "growth trends," suggesting several. He used the term "Ego Identity" to refer to "the person one feels one self to be." The growth trend involved here is toward stabilizing the Ego Identity. The second growth trend he distinguished is the freeing Of interpersonal relationships so that the person is increas- ingly able to interact with others. The third is the deepening Of interests SO that there is a greater absorp- tion or learning. The fourth is termed the "humanizing Of values" and is an extension Of Piaget's theory Of the evolution Of moral values between the ages Of seven and fifteen.134 "Under reasonably favorable circumstances personality tends to continue its growth, to strengthen its individual- ity, and assert its power to change the surrounding world."135 Galinsky and Fast described the identity formation phase appropriate to late adolescence as "The problem Of establishing and integrating character modes into a unified 136 These authors suggested that pattern Of functioning." identity formation and vocational choice are significantly linked, for people measure themselves against their image 134Ibid., pp. 331-352. 135Ibid., p. 365. 136 David M. Galinsky and Irene Fast, "Vocational Choice as a Focus Of the Identity Search," Journal Of Counseling Peychology, Vol. 13, NO. 1 (1966), p. 89. 62 of what a vocation requires for success. "When one's idea of self is shaky, unsolidified, distorted or has many warded-Off unconscious elements, it becomes difficult to check one's compatability with a possible occupation."137 Tipton also claimed that the self concept can be helped to develOp within the vocational area and that the behavior and ideas of others already in a given occupation may be incorporated by the individual.138 In a study Of college students aspiring to be teachers, Tipton investi- gated the role of interpersonal relationships in the process Of identification with a vocation. His experi- mental group comprised 128 men and women students in four introductory classes in education. His control group comprised 89 men and women students taking introductory psychology classes (with teacher aspirants omitted in the control group).139 By using a four point scale for the students to relate the effect of certain self-selected teachers on them, Tipton found that the students majoring in Education and aspiring to be teachers reported sig- nificantly closer relationships with their most admired teacher than did members of the control group, and they 137Ibid. 138Robert M. Tipton, "Vocational Identification and Academic Achievement," Journal of Counseling Psychology, Vol. 13, NO. 4 (1966), p. 425. 139Ibid., p. 427. 63 also reported a larger number of interpersonal relation- ships with teachers.140 Such a close link between personal development and professiOnal identification suggests the desirability Of making curricular provision for student teachers to have frequent contact with teachers and the school situation. More familiarity with the life Of a teacher could have a further advantage in helping student teachers become cog- nizant Of the real requirements of teaching. Super claimed "In choosing an occupation one chooses a role which he thinks he can play, and he attempts to play the role in a way which is compatible with his own aspirations and with the expectations Of others."141 Heist added further support in claiming that self- concept is fundamental in the personal develOpment that leads to an occupational decision for, "The image Of the expected occupational role must be coordinate to that Of a person's self-concept."l42 An undergraduate's concept Of his ability in interpersonal relationships may also be significant according to a survey of 2,758 Cornell under- graduates and later of a survey of 4,585 students from 14OIbid., p. 429. l4lDonald Super, Chapter VII in Encounters With Realit , ed. by Morey R. Fields (New York: The Center for Applied Research in Education, Inc., 1967), p. 94. 142Paul Heist, Chapter II, The College Student and His Culture, ed. by Kaoru Yamamoto (Boston: Houghton Mifflin CO., 1968), p. 163. 64 eleven universities throughout the country. Rosenberg interpreted the results as "The way a person character- istically relates to others will influence the type of career he selects."143 This finding refers to weightings which students, in selecting certain careers, placed on three major value complexes; the complex into which most teacher aspirants fitted was "peOple-Orientation."144 Taba also saw occupational choice and personal develOpment as interrelated. "Professional skills and. personal attitudes go hand in hand each affecting the other, and changes in one both requires changes in the other and produces possibilities for further changes."145 Student teachers gain their professional education as well as their general education at colleges. In recent years there have been a number Of studies of the growth of undergraduate students which are appropriate to this review Of fostering personal growth in student teachers. Studies of Growth in Undergraduates One of the most comprehensive studies of growth and development among college youth was carried out by 143Morris Rosenberg, Occupations and Values (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1957), p. 47} 144Ibid., p. 16. 145Taba, Op. cit., p. 462. 65 Chickering. Chickering has been, since 1965, the Director Of a Project on Student Development at Small Colleges. 146 His book, Education and Identity, is based upon a longitudinal study Of students in thirteen small colleges across the country. Chickering applied Erikson's adolescence and young adult develOpmental stages to college undergraduates and emphasized that with an increasing proportion of the seventeen to twenty-five year Old age group spending several years in the college environment, it is time for educationists to consider the impact of that experience upon the growth of these young peOple. He saw development occurring through sequences of differentiation and inte- gration;147 by considering develOpment in seven major dimensions, he provided bases for curricular planning. If a teacher education program is to encourage the full growth Of adequate persons to become teachers, a considera- tion Of these sequences and the developmental concerns they seek to confront helps to clarify the total goals of that curriculum. In describing seven major dimensions Of develop- ment that occur during the college years--competence, emotions, autonomy, identity, interpersonal relation- ships, purpose, integrity--I have attempted tO move "identity" one step toward greater specificity and 146Arthur W. Chickering, Education and Identity (San Francisco: Jossey Bass Inc., 1969). 147Arthur W. Chickering, "Institutional Objectives and Student DevelOpment in College," The Journal Of applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 3, NO. 3 (1967), p. 301. 66 concreteness. I aimed tO reach a level where connections could be made between these dimensions Of student change and educational policies and practices.148 The seven vectors of individual identity development that demand the attention of the undergraduate and there- fore Of the college curriculum should be briefly discussed here for, if Chickering is correct, colleges and teacher education institutions must help to meet the challenges Offered by this emerging conception Of the role of higher education. It would seem to be Of special importance that prospective teachers Should find an identity and self concept from which they can approach their professional career of assisting high school students through that same process Of development. The new society of the United States Of America in the late Twentieth Century seems to require new techniques for living, and individuals who, while masters of themselves, have a clear view Of their place in society. Chickering's data was gathered from small colleges, but it would seem that larger colleges should play a Similar role in producing graduates who can satisfactorily deal with a rapidly changing society. The first of Chickering's vectors of young adult identity formation is competence. He suggested that three 148Chickering, 1969, op. cit., preface, p. x. 67 types are distinguishable: (1) intellectual, (2) physical and manual, and (3) social and interpersonal. Underlying these is a sense Of one's own "competence to achieve" and 149 The second vector is that of a readiness to venture. awareness Of feelings and of learning to manage one's emotions SO that they may be integrated into the total identity.150 The third vector is that Of developing autonomy for, although interdependence remains important, the integrated young adult should be able tO give and receive comfortably and to function without feeling pressing and continual needs for reassurance, affection and approval.151 This vector may relate to student teacher concerns about their acceptance by pupils and faculty. Successful resolution Of such concerns results in the freeing Of "large amounts of energy for other than 152 Vector four is defined as direct self-service." achieving a "solid sense of self" and assumes the form of establishing one's identity as vectors one, two and three are undertaken with some success. The person is then ready to enter more totally into interpersonal relationships.153 1491bid., p. 37. 1501616., p. 46. 151Ibid., p. 58. lszIbid., p. 74. 153Ibid., p. 80. 68 In present day American society, identity is no longer socially bestowed as it was in more traditional times when a major role Of education was the socializing of the young. There are multiple alternatives today in a complex society and education's task is to aid in the self definition of 154 Wheelis affirmed this. "Modern man can- this identity. not recapture an identity out Of the past; for his Old identity was not lost, but outgrown. Identity is not, therefore, to be found; it is to be created and achieved."155 Keniston supported this interpretation also: "The more incompatible the components from which the sense of identity must be built and the more uncertain the future for which one attempts to achieve identity, the more difficult the task becomes."156 The fifth vector in Chickering's identity formation scheme is the freeing of interpersonal relationships by greater tolerance Of different backgrounds and values.- There is less need to dominate and more interpersonal 157 intimacy becomes possible. The sixth vector incor- porates a greater sense of purpose and interests, 154Ibid., p. 92. 155Wheelis, Op. cit., p. 205. 156Kenneth Keniston, "Social Change and Youth In America," in The Challenge of Youth, ed. by Erik H. Erikson (New York: Doubleday, 1954), p. 211. 157 Chickering, 1969, Op. cit., p. 97. 69 vocational plans and life styles are derived, along with a perceptive need for social change and a general sense of personal direction.158 Chickering's last vector is the development Of integrity in which a personally valid set of beliefs and values with internal consistency is settled upon. The role of the college is not to modify the content of values, but to help increase their role in the student's thoughts and behaviors.159 The symptoms Of the satis- factory attainment Of the seventh vector are closer con- gruence between behavior and values. AS with all aspects of identity formation, this congruence is a lifelong task and all vectors must be continually recreated, but it is in college that the methods can be most readily learned and a firm basis formed. Support for Chickering's seventh vector as applied to the teaching situation is found in a statement by Simon, "An individualized set Of values seems to dominate the success Of teachers who have that zest, that purpose, and that electric excitement which makes a classroom a reward- ing place to be."160 Pilder regretted that training programs and role expectations within the schools tended to suppress personal 158Ibid., pp. 108-122. 1591b16., p. 127. 16oSidney Simon, "Value Development; a High Sense of Individualization," The Association for Student Teaching, Forty-Second Yearbook, Chapter VIII (Ddbuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown CO., Inc., 1963), p. 125. 70 behavior “in favor of a teaching function focused on content and highly impersonal." For the pupils this represents a loss for "Without experiencing the person of a teacher, how is it possible for the young to begin con- sidering any kinds of values which are highly personal commitments?"161 Berman affirmed the importance of this personal con- tact in forming individual values. "Clarifying values takes place oftentimes in conversation between the student and the teacher."162 MacKinnon expressed a Similar sentiment in this way, "The knowledge Of self, Of relating, of loving, can be had only in free interaction with teachers who themselves are persons, teachers who are free to relate and let the child relate and therefore '1earn' the precious rewards Of interrelating."163 A relevant parallel to Chickering's research among 164 undergraduates is that Of Heath who has carried out 161William F. Pilder, "Values as a Process of Encounter," Educational Leadership, February, 1970, p. 451. 162Louise M. Berman, New Priorities in the Curriculum (Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, 1968), p. 170. 163Donald W. MacKinnon, The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1969 Yearbook, Chapter VI (Washington, D.C.: The Association, 1969), p. 117. 164Douglas H. Heath, Biplorations of Maturiiy: Studies Of Mature and Immature Collége Men (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts,71965). 71 research into what he terms "maturity" in male college undergraduates. His interpretation of maturity is akin to what White refers to aS "Ego Identity" and what Erikson and Chickering refer to as "Identity". For Heath, the well organized person is, in terms Of his own self-image, the "mature" person165 and this maturity includes the dimensions Of attitudes, values, interests, beliefs and motives.166 Heath started his studies about maturity in 1954 in a small liberal arts college by seeking consensual judgements on the most mature and the least mature men students. His studies followed the same students from freshman to senior year. He concluded that the mature young undergraduate displays qualities of an underlying stability Of integra— tion of the self demonstrated by an increasing congruence 167 This of the various elements of his own self image. stability is most manifest in the coming together of the young man's concept of his actual self with what he sees as his ideal self. Heath termed the mature undergraduate's increasing capacity to learn from others "allocentricism" to differentiate it from egocentricism. Other symptoms Of this maturity are, an autonomy of self image that can accept views from others but yet retain its own views and 1551bid., p. 43. 166Ibid., p. 45. 167Ibid., p. 108. 72 maintain its own actions, a greater availability Of the self image to conscious awareness and a self regard which includes an affective self acceptance.168 These prOperties of the self image were tested by Heath and shown to be related to the maturity and immaturity judgements made by students and the faculty,to self judge- ments and to various Rorschach measures Of stable schemata and gOOd control.169 The profile Of a mature young man at this small liberal arts college was of a well organized individual who was highly determined, conscientious, ener- getic, purposeful, ambitious and in command of his talents. He was highly motivated and his life strongly centered around other people.]'70 Heath's profile corroborated Combs' listing Of the characteristics of highly adequate personalities: (1) They tend to see themselves in positive ways . . . They see themselves as generally liked, wanted, successful, able persons of dignity, worth and integrity. (2) They see themselves and their world accurately and realistically. (3) They have deep feelings Of identification with other people . . . (4) They are well informed . . . They have perceptual fields which are rich, varied and available for use when needed.171 1681b16., p. 112. 169Ibid., p. 108. 170Ibid., pp. 167-170. l71COmbs, 1965, Op. cit., p. 70. 73 Bettelheim described a Similar type of person in his definition Of the "integrated personality" who is able to relate successfully to other humans, to analyze his own past experiences and to make inferences regarding his future behavior. "He has a sufficient understanding Of himself SO that he can develOp and maintain his own sense Of identity, responding to life's situations in accordance with his own interests, values and beliefs."172 Axelrod saw education for individual development as seeking to "promote an identity based on such qualities as flexibility, creativity, Openness to experience and responsi- bility. Although these qualities depend in part on early experiences, college can develOp them further and in new ways."173 Axelrod ei_ei,'s "highly develOped personality" is characterized by a high degree Of differentiation on the one hand but a high degree Of integration on the other. The result is that "Communication among parts is great enough SO that different parts may, without losing their essential identity, become organized into larger wholes in order to serve the larger purposes of the person."174 172Bruno Bettelheim, The Association for Supervision and Curriculum DevelOpment, 1969 Yearbook, Chapter V (Washington, D.C.: The Association, 1969), p. 83. 173Joseph Axelrod, Mervin B. Freeman, Winslow R. Hatch, Joseph Katz, and Nevitt Sanford, Search for Relevance (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., 1969), p. 12. 174Ibid., p. 15. 74 Heath continued his studies by investigating the degree Of stability Of mature and immature young men and found that disturbing information was more readily adapted to, and stability more rapidly regained by, those already defined as mature.175 These young men also proved to be non-authoritarian and Open to information from their external and internal worlds and to have a high threshold foryanxiety.176 Heath used this reinforcement of the concept of maturity to build a model to order the develOpmental process through institutional curricular provisions.177 The model is built upon this definition Of maturity: "To become a more mature person is to grow intellectually, to form guiding values, to become knowledgable about oneself, and to develOp social, interpersonal skills."178 Heath averred that the more important intellectual skills are judgement, analytic and synthetic thinking, logical reasoning and imaginativeness. He also stated that a person's self-concept is that which determines what he will attempt or not attempt.179 175Heath, Op. cit., p. 195. 176Ibid., pp. 284-286. 177Ibid., p. 195. 1781bid., p. 4. 1791bid., p. 5. 75 Heath claimed that the ability of a college to help its students toward maturity depends upon 1. The personal congruence Of the student's personality organization with the college's psychological demands. Here it is essential for the college to make known its stand to help students in their process of selecting a college that suits them. 2. The college's communal character must enable students to identify with the college and its purposes, and 3. The college and its faculty must cohere internally in terms Of those purposes.180 The coherence of Haverford College Community where Heath's research was carried out was recently demonstrated when the entire college from president through administra- tion, faculty and students, hired buses and travelled together to Washington, D. C., to participate in the anti- Cambodian involvement march of May 8, 1970.181 Facilitating Undergraduate Growth Heath reported of his book, The purpose Of Growing Uprn College is to illustrate how a model can be used to order the develOpmental process, to illuminate the potential 1801616., p. 250. 181State Journal, Lansing-East Lansing, Michigan, May 4, 1970. 76 types Of maturing effects, to explore in detail the relation between an institution and the growth of its members, to suggest new hypotheses about healthy growth.182 Heath felt that colleges could accomplish identifica- tion of individual and institutional goals only where size permitted personal interaction, although his definition Of purpose would seem to be applicable to larger institutions with more corporate sub-divisions, such as small colleges within a large university. Other writers have supported the theory that major changes of attitudes and values take place in individuals during the college years. Lehman and Dressel reported that marked changes occur between the freshman and senior year in critical thinking ability, attitudes and values, and that the greatest magnitude Of change occurs during the freshman and senior years. These conclusions were reached in the light Of the results Of a longitudinal research project among students at Mighican State University.183 Lehman and Dressel also claimed "It is therefore imperative that our colleges and universities recognize these facts and discard the notion that behavior 182Douglas H. Heath, Growinngp In College (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, Inc., 1968), preface, xii. 183Irving J. Lehman and Paul L. Dressel, Critical Thinkipg, Attitudes and Values in Higher Education, Final’Report of COOperative ResearchJ Project NO. 59 (East Lansing: Michigan State University, 1962). 77 characteristics are not their concern because it is tOO late to do something about them."184 Erikson's findings indicate it is never too late to do something about personality growth. I Lehman and Dressel claim that multiversities can Offer some Of the same sorts Of institution-individual integration that Heath opines can be achieved only in small colleges. It would be advisable for our colleges and universities to seriously consider, as has Michigan State, providing dormitories that will contain not only living and formal learning facilities, but also facilities and programs SO that the discussion and informal learning may make use of the best resources Of the university.185 Raushenbush suggests the creation Of "satellite" colleges attached to the existing institutions, to provide a suitable environment and way Of learning. Satellite colleges could also foster the relationship between teachers and students that helps to draw out the students' energy and imagination and to make education "a living experience."186 184Irving J. Lehman and Paul L. Dressel, Changes in Critical Thinking Abiliry, Attitudes, and Values Associated with College Attendance. FinalReport Of COOperative Research—Project No. 1646 (East Lansing: Michigan State University, 1963), p. 105. 185 Ibid., p. 163. 186Esther Raushenbush, The Student and Hie Studies (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan UniVersity Press, 1964), p. 179. 78 Recent research in two other large institutions supports the proposal that colleges and universities can make a large contribution toward Heath's mature person, Chickering's and Erikson's integrated identity and the highly adequate person that Combs envisaged as the helping teacher whose concerns are other-centered. Katz reported that the academic-intellectual Offerings Of colleges do not at present adequately connect with student motivation.187 Yet Katz sounded a note of caution against undue Optimism for the future. Perhaps because of a too idealistic reading Of Erikson's developmental timetable, we had a greater expectation Of profound alterations of character among our interviewers than warranted. . . . Instead of dramatic changes, we did, however, find changes confined to some segment of the character, for example, a more adequate self-conception.188 Perhaps it is tempting to take the conceptualization Of one person's insights and to apply them to another situation as a system. The author may not himself have thought of his ideas in this way. DevelOpmental stages can indeed be easily misapplied if they are taken to establish a 'norm' for measurement of develOpment. Such stages may indicate directions and prerequisites for poten— tial growth rather than predict the directions Of this growth. Teacher education could be well pleased if it were able 187Joseph Katz, et al., NO Time For Youth (San Francisco: Jossey—Bass, Inc., 1969), p. 4. lBBIbid., p. 7. 79 to achieve the more adequate self-conception that Katz reported. It could provide the basic competency of person that is the prerequisite for Combs' effective teacher. It could meet the personal competency requirement that Fuller 3512;: see as basic to a student teacher if he is to move from predominantly inner oriented concerns to other oriented teaching concerns. Katz's research was carried out at Stanford Univer- sity and at the Berkeley Campus Of the University Of California between the fall term Of 1961 and the gradua- tion Of the same students in 1965. Two-thirds Of the freshman classes at Stanford and Berkeley were tested (n = 3317) on six scales of the Omnibus Personality Inventory and on an Authoritarian and Ethnocentricism Scale. In addition, interviews with randomly selected students from the original test pOpulation were conducted throughout the four years. Toward the end Of the senior year the Omnibus Personality Inventory was re-administered, together with a specially constructed nineteen-page Senior Questionnaire.189 x The findings suggested that,"The intellectual and academic aspects of the college are secondary or tertiary for most students when compared with other concerns Of emotional and social growth."190 l89116161., Appendices. 1901616., p. 14. 80 Katz reinforced Galinsky and Fast's findings about the relevance of occupational considerations to the student's growing identity. "Career plans are very much part Of the student's growing identity. Our study has impressed us with the incompleteness of students' identity at the time of graduation."191 These concerns about career plans, about finding the self and about what society demands, appear to be the basis for the develOpment Of the self actualizing person spoken Of by Maslow, and the becoming person described by Kelley. The person who finds some resolution Of the three concerns and some balance between them can be recognized as Combs' highly adequate teacher who, Perceives the purpose Of the helping task as one Of freeing, assisting, releasing, facilitating, Can perceive beyond the immediate to the future, Is willing to disclose self, Sees his task as one of encouraging and 192 facilitating the process Of search and discovery. Katz claimed that the college curriculum should provide for inter-personal relationships and an environment that will help all the individual students enrolled because 1911bid., p. 18. 192Combs, 1965, op. cit., p. 85. 81 Some students question their identity; others feel relatively comfortable in an identity already achieved, still others anxiously cling to a shell Of identity that pggtects them from threatening external stimuli. The starting point, Katz suggested, is to make the student, not the course, the primary interest Of every department.194 The major areas which should be provided for all students to draw from are suggested as 1. academic-conceptual 2. aesthetic-artistic 3. peOple oriented activities Of (a) helping and (b) business service 4. man-made technology 5. motoric expression 6. the "art of sociability."195 These Six areas were suggested for "We also believe that nO true intellectual develOpment is possible when the intellect is treated not as a human component, but as an isolated depository for knowledge."196 Metha suggested that there is a dichotomy between the present interests of students and the present interests Of the faculty. 193Katz, et al., Op. cit., p. 421. 194Ibid., p. 424. lgSIbid., pp. 428-431. 196Ibid., p. 440. 82 While most institutions of higher education purport their Objectives as man's search for truth, our students are seeking man's search for meaning. To put it another way, while our campuses Of higher learning concern themselves with ideas, facts, information, and problem solving, our sensitive students are concerning themselves with finding the self.197 To ignore this new level Of student awareness, says Metha, is tO become "existentially unconscious." Sanford, however, sounded a note Of hOpe for curriculum change. By 1980 educators will see much more clearly than they do today that the major aim of college education is the fullest possible develOpment Of the individual personality, and that the only basis for planning an educational environment is knowledge Of how students actually develOp.198 The importance such a realization could have for the learning process is described by Sanford in an earlier work. The stronger and better conceived the individual's motives, the more firmly they are based on inner needs, and the better they are adapted to real possibilities, the more readily will the individual learn the facts and principles that he sets out to learn. The better his judgment, the greater his critical faculties and the better integrated the divers parts of himself, the more quickly will he assimilate knowledge and skills that can be Shown to have relevance to his purposes.199 197Arlene Metha, "The College Student: His Search for Meaning," Phi Kappa Phi Journal, Fall, 1964, p. 42. 198Nevitt Sanford, "The College Student Of 1980," in Campus 1980, ed. by Alvin C. Eurich (New York: Dell Publishing CO., Inc., 1968), p. 182. 199Nevitt Sanford, ed, College and Character (New York: John Wiley and Sons Inc., 1964), p. 16. 83 The college student,Katz and Sanford believed, benefits from an integrated curriculum for The pursuit Of Objectivity requires joint attention tO the student's impulse and to his thought. Other— wise the two will neither combine nor balance; and the individual will be in effect two men, an emotional man dominated by impulse and an intellectual man dominated by thought. This, in fact, is the life story Of many a liberal.200 The contrast between what Katz and Sanford prOposed and what exists at present is revealed by Korn. The curriculum is seldom an integrated whole designed to encourage intellectual develOpment; instead, it is a patchwork made up Of what numerous Specialists feel is vital to an understanding Of their own particular disciplines. Under such con- ditions, any hope that the student will be afforded an Opportunity to fruitfully work through a set Of integrating experiences is faint indeed.201 Korn was speaking of college curricula in general but Yamamoto et a1. referred specifically to teacher educa- tion curricula when they said The discouraging Side Of the story is first seen in the rather pervasive feeling in students Of frustra— tion at what they perceive to be trivial, fraction- alized, and irrelevant curricular experiences and routinized6 impersonal, and unimaginative instructional contacts.2 2 The purpose Of integrated intellectual develOpment is explained by Bay. 200Joseph Katz and Nevitt Sanford, "Curriculum and Personality" in College and Character, ed. by Nevitt Sanford (New York: John Wiley and Sons Inc., 1964), p. 125. 201Harold A. Korn, Chapter IV in No Time For Youtp, ed. by Joseph Katz et a1.(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc., 1969), p. 188. . 202Yamamoto, et al., Op. cit., p. 474. 84 A person is an intellectual, one might say, to the extent that his mind produces and utilizes the insight--into himself, into others, into the nature Of society-—that is required for coping with and anticipating the problems Of living a full life and facing death with serenity.20 This idea seems similar to the existential "awareness" that Morris Speaks of. "If education is to be truly human, it must somehow awaken awareness in the learner--existential awareness Of himself as a single subjectivity present in the world."204 This review has focused on the growth Of the indi- vidual, and has emphasized self concept and identity forma- tion. It must also be emphasized that these aspects Of growth depend upon interpersonal social relationships. The interpersonal and social factor has been referred to a number Of times in this review and one is reminded Of the balance necessary by Axelrod e£_ei,'s Observation: "The planning Of a total education environment must be guided by a theory Of the total personality as well as by social theory."205 203Christian Bay, "Toward a Social Theory of Intel- lectual DevelOpment," in College and Character, ed. by Nevitt Sanford (New York: JOhn Wiley and Sons Inc., 1964), p. 256. 204Van Cleve Morris, Existentialism in Education (New York: Harper and Row, 1966i, p. 110. 205 Axelrod et al., p. 14. 85 PART III. CHANGING SOCIAL PATTERNS Social Cpncerns and Personal DevelOpment Social factors require special attention for there is evidence that college undergraduates have major social as well as individual concerns. These concerns are Often inextricably linked in their minds. Student teachers might be expected to ponder current social concerns, if for no other reason than that they will be teaching high school students who have recently shown social conscious- ness. A survey was made of one in every fifteen junior high and senior high school principals acroSs the country in January, 1969, by the National Association of Secondary School Principals. Fifty-six per cent Of the junior high school principals and fifty-nine per cent Of the senior high school principals reported at least one, of what they considered to be disturbances, in their schools within the preceding twelve months. Eighty-two per cent of the principals reported protests about school regulations, forty-five per cent reported protests about the instruc- tional plan Of the school. Twenty-five per cent gave reports of protest about current social issues Of which racial questions comprised the predominant issue at ten per cent of the total protests reported. Of the large 86 urban senior high schools (of over 2,000 students) eighty- One per cent had been the scene Of protests.206 Cass is sure high school protests will endure and that they will be widely mishandled. We have told our youngsters that we want them to become independent. But once they walk through the schoolhouse door, we have insisted on treating them as children. I would guess that we're going to find it progressively harder to make the authoritarian bit stick.207 The major reason, however, for student teachers and all college undergraduates to consider social matters is that such tOpics are felt by many of them to be Of vital personal concern. American philosophies Of education have, almost without exception, stressed the social role Of the school. A larger prOportion of student teachers than ever before seem likely to show concern about what they currently find in their college and the public schools. McGovern was Of the Opinion that "there is a large group of young peOple who protest our present values because they earnestly seek an improved world. . . . They seek to square the practice of the nation with its ideals."208 206Jane Hunt, "Principals Report on Student Protest,“ American Education, October, 1969, pp. 4-5. 207James Cass, "Hot Spots in Education," New York State Education, December, 1969, p. 13. 208George McGovern, "Reconciling the Generations," Playboy Magazine, January, 1970, p. 126. 87 Eddy also believed that "Today's college student in the U.S. has a wide and continuing concern for effective solutions to both national and international problems."209 Najam reported The merits of student power may be debatable, but that a kind of student power does exist and is being exercised is not debatable. . . . the moderate students' commitment to the present order Of things is tenuous, for they appreciate the message Of the radicals if not their excesses. The students are concerned, he says, about a social system "in which the individual is losing his sense Of identity in a great philosophy of consensus."210 The interpersonal relationships and social involve— ment of the student would seem to play a major role in the integration of his identity and perhaps to have some rela- tionship with occupational aSpects of his identity. Social considerations have probably always played some such role but social involvement may currently be at a higher level than ever before. A New Pattern of Society Taylor said that the present age "is the first age in which the historical circumstances have combined to 209Edward D. Eddy Jr., The American College Student in a Changing Society (Forum University Series NO. 9, Voice of America, n.d.), p. 1. 210Edward W. Najam, "The Student Voice: A New Force," Educational Leadership, May, 1969, p. 67. 88 produce a younger generation SO fully aware Of those circumstances."211 Fisher saw the problem as one of cultural lag. "Institutions of a social nature, including schools and professional associations, have a way of gathering momentum which carries them beyond their zenith of usefulness."212 Useem Offered a more positive interpretation of change in present day American society when he referred to it as a "high civilization." Although the phrase may seem to carry some ambiguities at present, it did not when it was first coined in 1963. Useem equated the term "high civilization" with Boulding's pest-modern culture to refer to societies in the second half Of the Twentieth Century that have develOped technologically to the point that the United States Of America has done.213 "High civilization" is characterized by complexity in social patterns, the protean nature Of change, and the need for individuals to develOp their own self-identities from the multiple Options offered to them.214 It is important to note that Useem's 211Harold Taylor, "The Student Revolution," Phi Delta Kappan, October, 1969, p. 67. 212James L. Fisher, "The New Teacher Education: Prospects for Change," The Teacher and His Staff: Differ- entiating Teaching Roiee. Report Of the 1968 Regional TeacheriEducation and’Professional Standards Conferences (Washington, D.C.: National Commission On Teacher Educa- tion and Professional Standards of the National Education Association, 1968), p. 59. 213 Useem, Op. cit., p. 2. 214Ibid., p. 5. 89 term does not suggest that American society is a totality in an easily recognizable stage of develOpment. The develOpment is uneven and segmentalized, but we may assume that many college undergraduates are preparing themselves to move into the more complex segments Of that high civilization. The difficulties that such a high civilization poses are numerous. Among them, Useem pointed out, is "how to confront the loyal members Of the organization who cling firmly to dysfunctional patterns."215 As he was addressing a group of teachers, we may assume that the application to changes in educational institutions was a conscious one. Young teachers and student teachers are likely to find themselves confronted with major concerns in their enthusiasm to make changes which seem to them essential for a meaningful life in a changing society. Seeley pointed up the change that American society has recently experienced: I believe that youth as we confront it, has under- gone in our lifetimes transformations SO tremendous that as guides we are largely without guidance, since they are not as we were, their situation is not any situation we know, and those means by which we were socialized have little relevance for their Situation as they are now newly circumstanced.216 Mead affirmed this verdict in terms Of teaching. 215Ibid., p. 8. 216Yamamoto et al., Op. cit., p. 61. 90 The average schoolteacher 50 years ago got better as she got Older; She had more experience, she mellowed, she knew how children behaved and learned more about them. Today, she gets further and further away. She doesn't understand the children anymore.217 Taba helped to explain this gap: Because the technological advance is absorbed into the environment and transmitted through the artifacts and facilities in a compelling manner, there is usually a cultural lag between the rate of changes in the technological aspects of the culture and that in values, customs, behavior, expectations and social institutions. . . . We call those who make technical changes inventors, but those who make changes in nonmaterial culture are likely to be called rebels, revolutionaries and reformers, words which do not carry a positive flavor in the American mind. Neither is our culture predisposed toward planning social change, whereas planned technological change is common- place.21 "Most adults," said Taba, "lack the experiences necessary to make adjustments in society,"219 SO "the dehumanizing effects Of technology are not solved."220 A curriculum then needs to keep itself attuned to the "becoming social realities."221 Goodman claimed that in the colleges alienated youth meet academic personalities "that cannot and dare not 217Margaret Mead, Interview in New York Times Magazine, April 26, 1970, p. 102. 218Taba, Op. cit., p. 54. 2191bid., p. 55. 2201bid., p. 63. 2211bid., p. 67. 91 pierce to the reality Of growing up,"222 and furthermore they meet a conformist and impersonal administration which confirms their worst picture of the adult world. Friedenberg believed that the current generational conflict is "very different indeed" from those that have 223 Lerner sees the crucial factor occurred in the past. about today's college students to be "their effort to make themselves part Of what is happening around them." He sees undergraduates asking "What kind Of personality can I shape, in what kind of possible society? . . . DO I dare make the journey into the interior which is the most dangerous journey of all?"224 Keniston noted the concern of youth about their ability to handle present day American society. I was shocked by the number of square, straight students--with conservative backgrounds and good Old Republican-type parents--who casually mentioned that they think they could live happily in Canada or in Australia or in New Zealand. 5 He also reported,"The number of able students who feel disaffected and estranged and unrelated to the American 222Paul Goodman, The Community of Scholars (New York: Vintage Books, 1962), p. 275. 223Edgar Z. Friedenberg, "Current Patterns Of General Conflict," Journal of Social Issues, Vol. XXV, No. 2 (1969), p. 21. 224Max Lerner, "The Revolutionary Frame Of Our Time," in Tpe_COllege and the Student, ed. by Lawrence E. Dennis and Joseph F. Kauffman (Washington, D. C.: The American Council on Education, 1966), p. 18. 225Kenneth Keniston, Interview by Mary Harrington Hall, Peychology Today, November, 1969, p. 16. 92 social process has just zoomed upward in the past year." Some of these students "are fraternity types."226 Keniston sees the college experience as a new stage in life which postpones full adulthood for, although the students are psychological adults, their college way Of life keeps many of them "sociological adolescents."227 He referred to this new developmental stage for college undergraduates as the 228 whereas Erikson referred to it "post-adolescent stage," as the "young adult stage" and Heath named it "maturity." Keniston, like Useem, used Boulding's term when he said, "Today's youth is the first generation tO grow up with 'modern' parents; it is the first 'pest-modern' genera- 229 tion." Keniston claimed that most Of what is taught in schools, colleges and universities is largely irrelevant to life in "the last third of the twentieth century."230 Kerr stated that "the third great change affecting the contemporary university is its thorough-going 226Ibid. 227Ibid., p. 23. 228Kenneth Keniston, Young Radicals (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1968), p. 264. 229Kenneth Keniston, "Youth, Change and Violence," American Scholar, Spring, 1968, p. 228. 230 Ibid., p. 236. 93 involvement in the nation's daily life."231 KelsO found that undergraduates "do not want to play those games: (for grades) they want to grapple with life in the real world, not to be insulated from it in the ivory tower."232 Flacks felt "the appearance of student movements in advanced industrial societies really does signify that a new social and cultural stage is in the process of forma- tion."233 Gardner believes that college students "must be given the Opportunity to examine critically the Shared purposes Of their society--a major element in continuity--and to subject these purposes to the reappraisal that gives them vitality and relevance."234 Mayhew admitted that college faculties "are conserva- tive with respect to educational matters" but "the current rate and direction Of change within the larger society are 231Clark Kerr, "The Frantic Race to Remain Contempo- rary," in The College Student and His Culture, ed. by Kaoru Yamamoto et El} (Boston: Houghton Mifflin CO., 1968), P. 20. 232Dennis Kelso, "Undergraduate Response," Phi Keppe Phi Journal, Vol. XLIX, NO. 3 (Summer, 1969), p. 19. 233Richard Flacks, "Social and Cultural Meanings Of Student Revolt: Some Informal Comparative Observations," Social Problems, Vol. 17, NO. 3 (Winter, 1970), p. 356. 234John W. Gardner, Self-Renewal: The Individual and the Innovative SocieEY (New Yofk: Harper and Row, 1963), p. 22. 94 Of such magnitude that the perpetuation of the under- graduate status quo does not really seem to be a viable 235 Option." McLuhan Observed the new requirements set upon youth by its technological environment: "Our new environment compels commitment and participation. We have become irrevocably involved with, and responsible for, each other."236 He claimed that education poses special prob- lems for the young because it builds serially block-by- 237 block in a linear, logical pattern, but that is not how the technological environment has an impact on peOple. PeOple receive instant communication through the media238 and the student seeks to apply this type of experience to education by seeking total involvement. He seeks a role and not a series Of goals, "they do not want fragmented specialized goals or jobs."239 He suggested that many peOple feel their identity is threatened by the total involvement which television demands Of its viewers.240 235Lewis B. Mayhew, "The Future Undergraduate Cur- riculum," in Campus 1980, ed. by Alvin C. Eurich (New York: Dell PubliShing CO., Inc., 1968), p. 202. 236Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Massage (New York: Bantam Books, 1967), p.‘242 237Ibid., p. 63. 2381bid. 2391bid., p. 100. 240Ibid., p. 125. 95 In fact the whole process of defining one's identity takes on a different scale according to McLuhan. "The environment that man creates becomes his medium for defining his role in it."241 Student teachers may develOp a number of concerns in seeking tO adapt the subject matter Of their college methodology courses to high school students absorbed by McLuhan'S concept of an environmental media. In fact, the teacher's task may come to be that of giving pupils some share in the forming Of their own identity. Mead also dealt with the environmental gap between young and old and the way in which totally new social situations bring new experiences to today's youth. She posited a new "prefigurative" type Of culture in which young people can say to their elders, "You have never been young in the world I am young in, and you never can be."242 This is the world that all pioneers have to live within. Mead said that, in a sense, those born before the Second World War are pioneers in modern America. Mead posited three types Of cultures: 1. The postfigurative culture in which children learn the skills of life from their forebears,243 241Ibid., p. 157. 242Meadr OE. Cit., p. 63. 243Ibid., p. l. 96 2. The configurative culture in which both children and adults learn from their contemporaries but in which the elders still determine the limits,244 3. The prefigurative culture in which adults must learn from their children, for the young are at home in the new world. The problem is, she pointed out, that although the young have many insights, they do not know what must be done,245 and the communication break between young and Old is pre- 246 venting a common attack on social problems. In educa- tional terms "most children are unable to learn from parents and elders they will never resemble."247 The suggesting is made. "We must, in fact, teach ourselves how to alter adult behavior so that we can give up post-figurative upbringing, with its tolerated config- urative components, and discover prefigurative ways Of teaching and learning that will keep the future Open." "New" Concerns for "New" Teachers Where a student teacher found himself facing high school pupils in McLuhan'S or Mead's new social patterns 244Ibid., p. 32 2451bid., p. 74. 246Ibid., p. 76. 247Ibid., p. 84. 248Ibid., p. 92. 97 and where he was aware Of some of the learning problems, he would likely develOp major concerns about how to teach the pupils unless his supervising teacher, college coordi- nator or school administrators favored a 'new approach.' Such a problem may already be upon teacher education and the schools. Beck ei_ei,249 claimed that teachers must be very aware Of societal concerns. They list ten areas Of major and relevant concern to school teaching: 1. Increasing impersonalization and bureau- cratization of both schools and society 2. The remaining inequalities of educational and economic Opportunity 3. A lack of commitment on the part of Old and young alike 4. A disregard for law and tradition with no substitute Offered or sought 5. The 'lowering' of art forms, standards and other culture-marks to an insipid 'common denominator' 6. The pressures on both school and society from extremist political groups seeking imposition Of certain goals not currently deemed desirable or 'first priority' by educators 249Carlton E. Beck, Normand R. Bernier, James B. Macdonald, Thomas W. Walton and Jack C. WillerS, Education for Relevance (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1968), p. 242. 98 7. Growing racial tensions and prejudicial actions 8. Persistent international strife 9. The outdistancing of moral and ethical develOpmentS by scientific develOpment 10. Revolts against the 'Old' morality with no viable substitutes Offered.250 Beck ei_ei, conclude It is our belief that to recognize the social problems in the relationships between the school and society is half the battle. The other is to know oneself well enough to serve where and when251 one can to combat the SOO1al 1113 that one sees. Muro and Denton noted that student teachers are not unaware of social problems at local, national and inter- national levels. "It would seem that a knowledge Of such concerns would provide valuable data to the education professor in his work with the future classroom leaders."252 Taba underlined the need for change and the role Of the teacher in ensuring it. "In a rapidly changing society one task of curriculum makers and teachers alike is to keep interpretations Of society attuned to the 'becoming' social 250lbid., p. 242. 251Ibid., p. 248. 252James J. Muro and Gordon M. Denton, "Expressed Concerns Of Teacher Education Students in Counseling Groups," Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. XIX, NO. 4 (Winter, I968), p. 469. 99 realities."253 Inherent in this question of whether teachers can foster change, is a very basic social question, "Is it possible to meet the threat to democracy implicit in technology, preserve political liberty, and extend the benefits of democracy to all?" Taba saw this as part of the duty of education.254 Jacobs reported that professional courses he surveyed in five teacher education institutions moved students toward more liberal points Of view about change whereas the student teaching semester moved them the Opposite way toward more rigid and formalized attitudes Of authority.255 These conclusions were the result of administering the Valenti-Nelson Survey Of Teaching Practices to 1,000 students to evaluate their attitudes about the role of teachers. Jacobs suggested that either the professional courses are unrealistic or the student teaching experience conflicts with previous learnings. "It is possible that the changes in the student teaching semester might be the prOSpective teachers' reactions to bureaucratic organiza- tion; this might be called "bureaucratic shock."256 253Hilda Taba, Curriculum Develepment: Theory and Practice (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World) Inc., 1962), p. 67. 254Ibid., p. 39. 255Elmer B. Jacobs, "Attitude Change in Teacher Educa- tion: An Inquiry into the Role Of Attitudes in Changing Teacher Behavior," Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. XIX, NO. 4 (Winter, 1968), p. 410. 256Ibid., p. 414. 100 The major difficulty may lie with the teachers already in the school systems for they may not feel that it is the task of a teacher to consider the desirability Of change. Cope reports of teachers in England: "Teachers as a profession have not yet resolved how far they are conservers of social, cultural and ethical values as in the past, how far they are agents for adaptability and 257 Urick and Frymier have doubts about American change." teachers in their desire to foster change. Is it possible that persons who possess personality characteristics which lead to resistance to change are attracted to careers in education, or is it possible that such characteristics may arise out Of the experiences which the teachers encounter in the profession?258 Sorenson may suggest an answer when he said, "Teachers are trained to fit into the existing system, not to accept responsibility for examining and improving that system."259 Some student teachers, Often bright ones, feel that they are being pressured to perform in ways they personally disapprove of, but they do not dare to contest with their supervising teacher for fear of reducing their grade at the end. 257Edith Cope, "Discussions with College and School Staff on the Subject of 'School Practice'" (mimeographed draft to be published in Education for Teaching, p. 7). 258Ronald Urick and Jack R. Frymier, "Personalities, Teachers and Curriculum Change," Educational Leadership, 259Garth Sorenson, "Suggestions for an Improved Curriculum in Teacher Education," Journal of Teacher Educa- tion, Vol. XVII, NO. 3 (Fall, 1966), pp. 324-328. 101 The student teaching experience is an in-depth one in which the whole person of the student teacher is faced with a challenge or a threat. Whether the experience is seen as positive and challenging, or negative and threaten- ing, may depend upon the particular placement situation in which the student teacher finds himself. Or it may depend on the personal level of maturity or adequacy to which the student teacher had attained before embarking on the eXperience. The difference between challenge and threat may reflect what has been termed a "readiness to teach." Evidence has been presented in this chapter to sug- gest that a teacher education curriculum could contribute tO the developing Of more adequate and mature student teachers. More adequate student teachers should be more able to cope with a Situation in which they feel change should be brought about. They are likely to see such a situation as a challenge rather than as a personal threat. The data to be collected for this study may give some indications Of the way in which student teachers regard the school and social Situation into which they feel they must move. The effort to prepare more adequate and mature student teachers may sound like a new venture in some ways yet Axelrod did not think that the develOpment Of such characteristics among college undergraduates was such a new venture. 102 When we say that the development Of students as individuals, and not the accumulation of knowledge, is the primary aim of education, we believe that we are restating in contemporary terms the philosophy Of democratic and humanistic education that is characteristic Of Western civilization.260 If this be so, the concerns Of student teachers may be seen as reconsiderations, in a new social setting, of the concerns that have always been a prOper element in the process that passes from teacher to student and back again. 260Axelrod et al., op. cit., p. 8. CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY Overview of Chapter III This chapter explains the design Of the study, the data collection procedures and the plan for analysis of data. The design of the study was determined by the guide to research methods in social relations compiled by Jahoda, Deutsch and Cook.1 Design Of the Study ngulation Studied The population selected for this study consisted Of all secondary student teachers in six selected teaching centers of the Michigan State University teacher education program. These students did their student teaching during Spring Term, 1970. The six urban and suburban teaching centers with the largest allocation of secondary student teachers for Spring Term, 1970, were selected from the total list of teaching centers used by Michigan State University for its student teaching program. The teaching lMarie Jahoda, Morton Deutsch and Stuart W. Cook, Research Methods in Social Relations, Part I and Part II (New York: The Dryden Press, 1951). 103 104 centers and the secondary student teachers allocated to them are Shown in Table 3.1. TABLE 3.l--Secondary Student Teacher Allocations to Teaching Centers, Spring Term, 1970.a '*Lansing Local Area 63 Jackson 25 *Flint 56 Pontiac 22 *Detroit 42 Walled Lake 17 *Lansing Suburban 40 Battle Creek 16 *Livonia 30 Birmingham 16 Grand Rapids 30 Benton Harbor-St. Joseph 16 Saginaw-Bay City 28 Niles 15 *Macomb 26 Port Huron 0 *Selected centers aFigures are taken from Personal Record Cards at the Campus Student Teaching Office. It will be noted that more secondary student teachers were allocated to the Grand Rapids and Saginaw-Bay City Centers than to Macomb Center. The two former Centers were not included among those selected, as student teachers were placed in a number of rural schools in those Centers and it was deemed desirable to restrict this study to urban and suburban‘schools. It seemed possible that the inclusion of rural schools might introduce to the study a number of additional variables which would be difficult to predict. The distribution of the population according to demographic groups is listed in Appendix D. 105 A sample was not chosen from within the population of the six selected centers as it was considered likely that attrition during the term could render a sample numerically inadequate for the purposes of this study. Attendances at seminars in the last two weeks of the term were expected to drOp as student teachers scheduled inter- views for jobs. There were 317 questionnaires sent to the teaching centers for the first administration and 262 were returned; 287 questionnaires were sent to the teaching centers for the second administration and 178 were returned. Table 3.2 shows the details for the distribution and return of the questionnaires. TABLE 3.2--Distribution and Return of Questionnaires. First Administration Second Administration Questionnaires sent out 317 Questionnaires sent out 287 Questionnaires returned 262 Questionnaires returned 178 Unused 55 Unused IU9' Summary of Two Administrations Responses to Questionnaire l 262 Responses to Questionnaire 2 178 Difference 84 Discarded Respenses Unmatched responses 15 No returns on second Questionnaire 84 Discarded 99 Summary Of Responses Responses returned to first Questionnaire 262 Discarded responses 99 Paired responses used in study I63 106 The total number of paired responses used in this study was 163. That is, 326 papers on the two administra- tions combined. This number of paired responses was consid- ered adequate for the study. Development of the Questionnaire Two questionnaires were constructed. Questionnaire l was administered during the first week of the student teaching term. Questionnaire 2 was administered to the same respondents during the ninth week of the same term. Each questionnaire comprised two sections.2 In each case, Section 1 collected demographic data and Section 2 consisted Of an identical free response question. Section 1 of each questionnaire was developed tO gather demographic data for this study. The data was used to assist in the interpretation of responses to Section‘2 of the questionnaire. The data sought was of three types: 1. Details of school placement. (Questions 1 through 6 Of Questionnaire l and questions 1 through 3 of Questionnaire 2.) 2. Information about previous teaching experience. (Questions 7 through 10 of Questionnaire 1.) 3. Personal information about accommodation and commuting during the student teaching term. (Questions 11 through 14 of Questionnaire 1 and questions 7 and 8 Of Questionnaire 2.) . 2Questionnaire l and Questionnaire 2 are to be found in Appendix A. 107 Several questions were repeated in Questionnaire 2. Questions on sex, marital status, grade level taught and subject taught were repeated to assist in pairing papers that did not carry a clear identification. The question about commuting was repeated as Questionnaire 1 did not make-clear whether respondents were to consider "commuting daily" as a one-way or a round trip. The free response question which comprised Section 2 of each questionnaire was developed by Fuller and Case.3 The authors reported that the free response question, and a code they developed and tested for scoring the responses, had been helpful in their counseling work. Both authors work in the Research and DevelOpment Center for Teacher Education at the University of Texas at Austin. Although this study is not oriented Specifically toward counseling, the frank expression of concerns and the classification of concerns that the code results in, were considered appropriate to the design. The question allows the type of unstructured response which was thought essential to the purpose Of this study. The personal perceptions of student teachers could have been modified had the question been directive. Pilot Administration of the Questionnaire Drafts of both questionnaires were administered to two groups Of student teachers at their weekly seminars in 3See Appendix A. 108 the Jackson Teaching Center during Winter Term, 1970. Each group consisted of twelve student teachers. The results were examined and a discussion was held with the respondents. This examination resulted in a number of changes being made to clarify the phraseology and to rearrange the order of some of the questions. A consultation was held with the group leader who administered the questionnaires to one of the groups. The writer administered the question- naires to the second group to gain knowledge of possible administration problems. Data Collection Procedures Administration of the Questionnaires Questionnaire l was distributed to teaching centers in time for seminars held during the first week Of Spring Term, 1970. Questionnaire 2 was distributed to teaching centers in time for seminars held during the ninth week Of the ten week term. Instructions for administration Of the questionnaires were sent with the questionnaires to each teaching center. The Center Directors4 were asked to assign question- naires to each group that met for a weekly seminar. An instruction Sheet was sent to the group leader of each seminar. 4Center Director refers to the full-time member of the Michigan State University Faculty, with professorial rank, who is in charge of a Teaching Center. 109 At the seminars the following procedures were used: 1. Group leaders distributed the questionnaires. 2. Wherever necessary, group leaders assisted respondents to answer questions about placement in schools. 3. The free response question was then timed at ten minutes by the group leader. 4. Respondents sealed their completed questionnaire in provided envelopes. 5. Respondents placed a code of their own devising in the top left corner Of the envelope. 6. Group leaders returned the questionnaires to the Center Director to be forwarded to the Student Teaching Office at the Michigan State University Campus.5 There they were retained in their groups and two copies of each free response were made. The individual code from each envelope was transferred to the corresponding free response and also to another blank envelope. This envelOpe with the code marked on it, was returned to the teaching center along with the second questionnaire and instructions for administration. The mode of administration of Questionniare 2 was, the same as for Questionniare 1. Two copies of the free response to Questionnaire 2 were also made. Both were sent to the coders for scoring. 5Hereafter referred to as Campus. 110 Coding ofguestionnaire Responses The coding of the free responses was carried out by two teams Of two coders each. The free responses were divided so that half the papers from each teaching center were given to one team. The other half of the responses for that teaching center was given to the second team of coders. The two coders in each team received identical papers. Free responses were scored by an adaptation of the code designed by Fuller and Case to apply to the question used in this study.6 An adaptation to the code was made to include an extra category for coding personal concerns. In the original code, personal concerns, together with vaguely stated concerns, were scored 0. As the purpose of this study was to examine personal as well as social and professional concerns, it became important to have personal concerns distinguished by the coders. Vaguely stated concerns were left in a category of their own with a score of 0. The addition of a personal concerns category with a score of l converted the original code from a seven category scale to one with eight categories. The original code had a range Of scores from O to 6. By adding the personal concerns category at the second level, the remainder Of the code scores (1 through 6) were raised by one point each. The amended code, therefore, had a score range from 0 to 7. 6See Appendix B. 111 Selection and Training Of Coders Student Record Cards in the Student Teaching Office at Michigan State University Showed that the age range in the teacher education program was concentrated in the nine- teen tO twenty-three year old range and that the proportion of student teachers in each group after twenty-three declined rapidly. The coders used in this study were selected, therefore, within the age range of twenty to twenty-four years. The coders also met the other requirements suggested by Jahoda ei_ei. in that they were intelligent people, motivated toward the topic being coded and had a general understanding of the field of inquiry. Finally, they were able to make decisions.7 All the coders had been rated highly successful as student teachers as evidenced by recommendations from their supervising teachers and college coordinators. Two coders were classroom teachers who had been teaching for more than two years but for less than four years; both had completed their student teaching within the five years prior to coding the responses. Two coders graduated in Spring Term, 1970 and had completed their student teaching within three terms prior to coding the responses. The same four coders were used to code the free responses from each questionniare. They were divided into 7Jahoda, Deutsch and Cook, Op. cit., Part I, p. 274. 112 two teams. Each team comprised a recently graduated student teacher and a classroom teacher. Inter-Coder Agreement A training session was held to explain and illustrate the codes. Each coder was given a full list Of the instruc- tions as well as examples from sample responses provided by the authors of the code. After general discussion about the codes, Six identical responses were coded by each coder independently. The scores were compared and discussed. Immediately before coding the reSponses to Question- naire 1, the four coders marked five identical test papers. Similarly, they marked five identical test papers before coding the responses to Questionnaire 2. In each case the, papers were randomly selected from the total responses for that administration. All the test papers were also marked by the Adjudicator. The Adjudicator was the writer of this study. Results for each test marking are given in Table 3.3. The difference revealed by the minus Sign was disre- garded for it does not indicate a numerical difference. The minus sign indicates that, although the number preceding it reveals the level of the majority of reported concerns, there were a number of statements (or perhaps just one) Of a lower level than the majority reported by that individual. In the first administration, the only numerical difference to be resolved was the score given by Coder 3 on 113 TABLE 3.3--Inter-Coder Agreement. Coder Coder Coder Coder Adjudi- l 2 3 4 cator Administration 1 Paper 1 3 3 3- 3 3 Paper 2 2 2— l 2- 3 Paper 3 2 2 2 2- 2 Paper 4 3- 3- 3- 3- 2 Paper 5 2 2 2 2— 2 Administration 2 Paper 1 5 6 6- 6- 6- Paper 2 l l l l 1 Paper 3 1 l l l 1 Paper 4 1 1 2 l 1 Paper 5 7 1 6- 7 7 Paper 2. The Adjudicator and Coder 3 discussed the reasons for coding with the three other coders and agreed that the three other coders gave more acceptable reasons for their score of 2. Coder 3 therefore reclassified the paper with a score of 2. In the second administration Coder l changed the score from 5 to 6 upon hearing the reasons given by the other coders for a score of 6. Similarly, Coder 3 changed the score for Paper 4 to 1. Paper 5 created more problems, for Coder 2 thought the statement indicated a personal rather than a professional reason for desiring change. This coder was a classroom teacher. Considerable discussion arose about the criterion for making a decision on whether state- ments were personal or professional in the concern represented. The coding directions did not give Specific help or direction 114 in this, for outspoken student criticism of the school system and society has developed relatively recently on some campuses and perhaps not at all on others. NO illus- tration of the type of social criticism met in the responses of a few to Questionnaire 2 appear in the guide for coding. The writer gave a ruling which seemed to follow the inten- tion of the authors of the code and which established a common pattern for the marking of such responses. The type of response referred to did not occur in the responses to Questionnaire l. The basis Of the Adjudicator's ruling was as follows. Where a response was critical of the school system, the coder needed to estimate whether the statement showed a professional concern to help the pupils, or if it indicated an inability of the student teacher to adapt into that school system. To aid the coders, it was suggested they could ask themselves the following questions when determining whether to award a 0, l or 7 to the response: 1. Was the statement so vague as to earn a 0? 2. Was the statement a revelation of a student teacher's inability to adapt to a new situation and therefore a purely personal concern, to be awarded a l? 3. Was the statement a professional concern to improve educational Offerings to pupils and therefore to be coded as 7? 115 This ruling enabled Coder 2 to change her score for Paper 5 to a 7. The coding was completed with little further difficulty. Only three further cases arose and each time a short conference between two coders and the Adjudicator produced a unanimous score. All codings were checked by the Adjudicator and any difference between coders was discussed with them. Adjust— ments were made in all cases by the coders. AS a result, the same overall score was given to each response by both Coders in a team. Some scores carried the minus sign but this difference in coding was ignored for the statistical calculations were made on the basis of the numeral and not the Sign. Plan for the Analysis of Data The analysis of data examined the reported concerns and analyzed the rating scores awarded by the coders to each response. An analysis of covariance was used to explore whether the changes in types of reported concerns showed differing patterns between the groups tested. The characteristics of adequate persons and of effective teachers set out in the review of literature were applied as criteria to the reported concerns to complete the analysis. The classification used in the examination Of reported concerns was based on the scores awarded to responses by use of the Fuller-Case Concerns Code. The general overview Of classifications based upon those scores is >116 given in Table 3.4. This classification allowed an examina- tion of the types of concerns to consider which of them revealed personal, social and professional perceptions Of the student teaching situation. The rating scores awarded by the coders were also used to carry out an analysis of covariance. The scores for the reSponses to the first questionnaire were used as the covariable.8 The analysis was used to explore whether the changes in types of reported concerns showed differing patterns between the groups tested. The changes in types Of concern were based upon the changes in rating scores awarded to each respondent in the two questionnaires. TABLE 3.4-—Concerns Classified by Scores on the Fuller Case Concerns Code. Vague statements Personal rather than teaching Orientation in a new teaching situation Classroom control Relationship with pupils, feelings of individual pupils Pupils' cognitive gain Pupils' interest in learning, growth in attitudes, values \lONU'IobUJNl-‘O Professional development, improvement of educational provision Comparison of Groups A comparison of groups was made using an analysis Of covariance. The scores for the responses to the first 8The program used was developed by Jeremy Finn Of the State University of New York at Buffalo. 117 questionnaire were used as the covariable. This section Of the analysis sought to determine whether a Significant difference existed between the selected groups, on the basis of a change in score between the first and second administrations of the questionnaire. The demographic groups used as the bases for these comparisons were obtained from Section 1 of each question- naire. The groups were: sex marital status college year status school level taught seminar groups placement--c1uster or traditional number of students assigned to school subjects taught commuting more than 40 miles daily previous teaching experience OOmQONU'I-wal-J |—J Demographic data was punched onto data cards. The Fuller-Case Code scores for the responses to the first and second questionnaire were also punched on the data cards. The 3600 computer was used to calculate the change in score from Questionnaire l to Questionnaire 2. A comparison Of the differences between demographic groups was made on the changes Of score. The level of significance chosen for this study was the .05 level. This level indicates that the observed differences between groups is likely to occur by chance in only five out of every 100 cases. Or, to state it differently, the investigator may be 95 per cent confident that the grouping effect does make a difference in the change of score. 118 No hypotheses were tested because this study was designed as an exploratory one. Where the analysis of covariance indicated a differ- ence between the groups at the level of significance chosen for this study, a post-hoc analysis Of the statistics was made. In the post-hoc analysis the least square esti- mates, adjusted for covariates, were calculated with the associated standard errors of these estimates. This calculation established the bounds of the differences Of the means for the groups being compared. When 0 lies to the right or left of the bounds, this implies that there is a difference in the change in score of the groups being compared. Furthermore, this difference is due tO something other than chance. In this calculation, the item which showed the greater change could be detected by whether the resultant figure carried a positive or a negative connotation. A positive connotation indicated that the first item was the higher in score and therefore the group with the higher gain. A negative connotation indicated that the second item had the higher score and therefore the higher gain. The post-hoc analysis therefore allowed recognition of the specific group which had shown the positive differ- ence in gain Of score. 119 The Characteristics of an Adeguate Person and EffectiVe Teacher The review of literature sets out a number of charac- teristics of adequate persons and of effective teachers. These characteristics were used as criteria and applied to the reported concerns. Examples of concerns reported by the student teachers are quoted to indicate their correspond- ence to the characteristics. A discussion Of adequacy in student teachers is entered into as an indicator of whether or not the respondent has the immediate potential to become an effective teacher. Summary of the Chepter In this chapter the design, data collection procedures and plan for analysis of data have been described. The study used a free response questionnaire to gather concerns of secondary student teachers reported during the first week and again during the ninth week of a ten week student teaching term. The classification resulting from the rating Of responses by the Fuller Case Concerns Code was used to assist examination of the reported concerns. The types Of concerns reported in each of the first and ninth weeks were examined. An analysis of covariance was used to explore whether the changes in reported concerns showed differing patterns between the groups tested. 120 The characteristics of adequate persons and effective teachers were applied to the reported concerns. These characteristics were used as criteria to facilitate discussion of whether or not the concerns indicated that the reSpondent had the immediate potential to become an effective teacher. CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS OF DATA This chapter analyzes the data gathered. It examines the concerns reported by 163 student teachers during their student teaching. All were teaching at the secondary level and responded to a questionnaire during the first week and again during the ninth week of a ten week term. A team Of four coders rated the responses according to an adaptation of the Fuller Case Concerns Code as described in Chapter III. Table 4.lsets out the ratings of student responses as they were scored by the coders. First Week Table 4.1 Shows that during the first week the con- centration Of respondents was at the lower ratings. A total of 121 student teachers, representing approximately three- quarters Of the pOpulation, received a rating of three or less. This indicated some preoccupation with the personal concerns likely to be encountered in the first week in a new school Situation. Sixty-two per cent were rated at the score Of 2 alone, a category which denotes concern with making personal adjustments to a school. However, approxi- mately one—fifth Of the group were included in the three 121 122 TABLE 4.l--Ratings of Student Teacher Responses--First Week and Ninth Week of Student Teaching. First Week Ninth Week R t' Award d Number of % of Number of % of ba ingsr e Student Student Student Student y 0 e S Teachers Teachers Teachers Teachers 0 Vague concerns 5 3 5 3 1 Personal concerns 6 4 16 10 2 Orientation to new school 102 62 50 31 3 Classroom control 8 5 10 6 4 Ability to relate to pupils ll 7 12 7 5 Pupil cognitive gain 23 14 28 17 6 Overall pupil growth and value formation 6 4 38 23 7 Concern to improve educa- tional Offerings 2 1 4 3 163 100 163 100 123 top categories of the code. These levels denote concerns that focus on the development of pupils. In the case Of eight student teachers a rating Of six or seven was awarded. According to the code this signifies a concern about the pupils as persons and about the fostering Of their affec- tive as well as their cognitive growth. Ninth Week More than 40 per cent of the respondents had moved into the three top categories by the ninth week Of the stu- dent teaching term and expressed concerns about pupil learning or growth. The 28 student teachers rated at level five were concerned that their pupils Should grow cognitively as a result Of their teaching. More than one-quarter of the population studied scored 6 or 7 and expressed concern about the total growth and development Of the pupils. This group Of 26 per cent at the two higher categories is in contrast to the 5 per cent who appeared in this category in the first week. These student teachers expressed the types of concerns that could be expected of a regular teacher with a professional orientation toward pupils. Despite the considerable gain on the part of some student teachers, there was a group which did not raise its score. Fifty respondents, or 31 per cent, continued to score at level two. This was exactly half of the percentage that scored two during the first week. Thus there was a substantial group of student teachers whose concern in the 124 ninth week was still predominantly that Of adapting to a new school situation. The number of respondents with a predomin- ance Of personal concerns (level 1) had increased by Six per cent. Of the 16 respondents with this rating, 11 were men. Ten Of the 16 with a score Of l lowered their score from 2 in the first week. Three had received the identical score of l in the first week as well as in the ninth week and one respondent raised his score from 0. Two of the respondents who moved drastically from scores Of 5 and 4 to a score of l were teaching in the same situation. In fact, Of the 16 respondents with a score of l in the ninth week, five were teaching in the same situation, including the two who moved drastically. Their placement was in a cluster with more than nine student teachers in the one school. In the ninth week, 13 per cent Of the total population were rated in categories three and four and were concerned about controlling the pupils or being accepted by them. These categories separated a group Of respondents with lower ratings, totaling 44 per cent, from a group with higher ratings which totaled 43 per cent. The distribution was bi-modal in character and this implies two different reactions Of student teachers. One reaction produced a movement to higher scores, the second caused a number of respondents to remain at two and others to move even lower. In other words, one group appeared to develop concerns about pupils and moved to levels 5, 6, or 7. The other group 125 consisted of respondents who either failed to develOp a majority of concerns about pupil growth, or supplanted such concerns expressed in the first week with more personally oriented concerns in the ninth week. An examination Of the scores in week one and week nine Shows that Of the 50 respon— dents who were rated 2 in week nine, 36 had remained at that level since the first week. Eleven had dropped to score 2 from higher scores with five dropping from level 5 in week one. No respondent dropped from level 6 or 7 to a score of 2. One of the two respondents who was rated 7 in the first week dropped to a rating of five in the ninth week; the other who scored 7, retained his score of seven in the ninth week. Of the four respondents who scored 7 in the ninth week, two were women and two were men. Both Of the women scored 2 in the first week. One man had moved up from a score of 1 and the other had retained an original score Of 7. A comparison Of the proportion Of student teachers who moved positively, those who moved negatively and of those who did not move at all during the nine weeks is interesting. Approximately one in every two student teachers moved positively during that time. Approximately one in five moved negatively in the same period, and approximately one in three showed no change in score. Table 4.2 Shows the figures from which these statements were taken. 126 TABLE 4.2--Amount of Movement of Student Teachers Between First Week and Ninth Week. I Per Cent Of Student Teachers Making Number of Positive or Negative Movement Student Movement or No Teachers Movement Positive Gain Of 1 point 19 Gain of 2 points 16 Gain Of 3 points 21 Gain Of 4 points 17 Gain of 5 points 3 Gain of 6 points 2 Total for Positive 78 48 NO change in score 50 31 Negative Loss Of 1 point 17 Loss of 2 points 10 LOSS Of 3 points 7 LOSS Of 4 points 1 Total for Negative 35 21 Total Movement 163 100 The next portion Of the analysis discusses these movements in score in the light Of the demographic groups in which the greatest gains in score were made. Changes in Concerns According to Demogrephic Groupe The ratings awarded by the coders were used to further examine the changes in types of concern that occurred between the first and the ninth week of student teaching. These 127 changes were examined by classifying responses into groups of demographic variables derived from the demographic information gathered in the questionnaires. An analysis of covariance was used. The level Of significance selected was at the .05 level of significance. The demographic variables investigated were: Sex, Marital status, College status, Living accommodations, Commuting, Previous teaching experience, Level Of school taught, Type of placement, and Subjects taught. No significant difference was found in the changes in score in five Of the nine demographic variables tested. Those which showed no significant difference at the .05 level Of Significance were marital status, college status, commuting, level of school taught, and subjects taught. Differences at the .05 level of significance were found in the following groups: sex, living accommodations, previous teaching experience, and type of placement. Table 4.3 shows the demographic groups which showed differences significant at the .05 level of significance. 128 homo.o mm.H on no.0 nmammm.o onmoah.o ocwcnco>om .> poem coco Hozom eom0.0 mo.~ op H0.0 e00000.0 meemmm.a mode ops: .> snow coop umBom Hoocom ca .02 vmao.o mm.a ou eH.o momamm.o monoow.o Monmoao .> HmcoAuHcmuu ucoEoomam 5500.0 00.H- on He.0- 0mm~00.0 00eHm0.H- ocop .> oooospooxo COHMOQAOHDHMQ mucosuommm msofl>oum ammo.o mv.a ou ma.o menamm.o mamvam.o omoomm .> mucoumm coflumooeeoooa mooo.o mm.H on om.o mmnnm~.o Hmvmmm.o mama .> mamaom xom HO>OHIQ Ho>ma .m.m.q ouoEwpmo oaomwum> oouomfioo oococflmcoo How Hound monsoon oacmmumOEoo How mccsom cuwcsmum umooq .moaoofluo> OsgmmHOOEOQ DSMOHMHSmHm mo mHmMHmsdllm.e mqmom mo mmoouo as cocoam mucoccommomnuv.v mqmaum oz cocoaummxm coaummwoeuuom mocmflummxm mswhomoa .msflnommfi cw mocowuomxm oz was mosoaummxm coflummwOHuHmm .mosOHHomxm mcflsomoa £Dw3 mmsouw "H Ross ca omoumsm mmcfluomli.N.m mqmde 232 00H um COH me COH MN o o h N H b o o 5 5H m m NH m m NN m m om mH m NH m m o o m m N v n m w NH m v m N m a v m m N m Hm HH N we mH N om n N m H H m v H NN m H m H o m N o v H o musoosum musoosum musuwsum mucoosum mucoosum musoosum Co a mo umnssz maHamm no a no uanssz maHumm no x no Hanssz masumm OOcOHuomxm msoH>mHm oz OOCOHuOmxm coHummHOHunmm OOOOHHomxm mcHoomoa .mcHnomaB :H mosaHnomxm oz can mocmHuwmxm :OHDOQHOHDHOA .mocaHummxm msHEOOOB nuHB mmsouu uH xooz cH N toumm one: on: mucmosommmm muons on m xOOS CH toonmzfi mmsHummul.m.m mamfie 233 OOH NO OOH MO OOH Om m N h H H n m H n «N OH O 5H HH O Nm NH O Nm ON O OH O m m N O O m w m m O OH v e h v N O O m m N m HN mH N Ov ON N HN m N m N H OH O H HN O H N H O m N O m H O mucoooum mucoosum mpcmcsum musoosum mucoosum musmosum OO O OO Honssz msHumm OO a mo Monasz osHumm OO O OO nooesz msHumm oocmHuOmxm msoH>OHm oz OOCOHHmmxm coHummHOHuumm OOGOHuomxm mcHhoama .OQHEOOOB DH mocmHHmmxm oz can OOQOHHmmxm coHummHoHuumm .OocmHummxm OGHLOOOB EDH3 mmsouw “O #003 CH omoumzd mmsHpmmli.v.m mqmde 234 TABLE E.5.--Ratings Awarded in Week 1 and Week 9: Placement Groups of Fewer than 4, 4 to 6, 7 to 9 and more than 9.* Week 1 Week 9 Rating Number of % of Rating Number of % of Students Students Students Students Fewer than 4 in one placement 2 3 0 2 3 O l 4 6 l 6 10 2 41 64 2 13 20 3 4 6 3 3 5 4 l 2 4 2 3 5 9 l4 5 18 28 6 3 5 6 19 29 7 0 0 7 l 2 4 to 6 in one placement 0 3 7 0 2 5 l l 3 1 3 7 2 24 6O 2 17 41 3 O 0 3 1 3 4 7 l7 4 1 3 5 3 7 5 5 13_ 6 l 3 6 10 25 7 l 3 7 l 3 40 100 40 I55 7 to 9 in one placement 0 0 O 0 1 2 l l 2 l 2 5 2 28 61 2 16 35 3 3 6 3 5 ll 4 2 5 4 8 l7 5 9 l9 5 5 ll 6 2 5 6 8 l7 7 l 2 7 l 2 235 TABLE E.5.--Continued. Week 1 Week 9 Rating Number of % of Rating Number of % of Students Students Students Students More than 9 in one placement 0 0 0 0 0 0 l 0 0 l 5 43 2 8 73 2 3 27 3 0 0 3 0 0 4 1 9 4 1 10 5 2 18 5 0 0 6 0 0 6 1 10 7 0 0 7 1 10 11 100 11 100 *The total for this table is 161 as two respondents neglected to answer this question. APPENDIX F PAPERS REFERRING TO TEACHING CLUSTERS 236 EXPLANATORY NOTE FROM A CENTER DIRECTOR TO TEACHERS IN HIS CENTER Re: MSU Student Teaching Cluster Program Most of you are aware that a rather different kind of student teaching program has recently been developed in this center. Briefly, this innovative program involves the assigning of a substantial number of student teachers to one building or to one or more subject areas in a building rather than to assign them to individual supervising teachers. With this kind of assignment the plan is to develOp a flexi- ble program that will allow each student teacher to work with more than one classroom teacher during student teaching. This enables each student teacher to observe several differ- ent teaching styles and to make several fresh starts in organizing subject matter and in establishing themselves as leaders in a classroom. This also gives them some exposure at different grade levels in their various subjects enabling them to make a more logical choice when they apply for teaching positions. An article by Dr. Robert Oana describes in some detail a flexible approach in student teaching which calls for cooperation and communication among administrators, teachers, college personnel and student teachers in planning and implementing the best possible program for each student teacher. As described the program is expedited by a building consultant whose job it is to provide professional instruction to student teachers in regularly scheduled daily meetings and to help with all areas of the student teaching program. An important part of his work is to clear and confirm period- ical student teacher schedule changes with all concerned. One question that arises whenever a new program is instituted is, "How does this program affect me?", or "What am I expected to do?" One possible answer to this might be that there will be several levels of involvement for faculty members as this program progresses. First of all, and per- haps most important, it will be necessary for all of you to give philosophical support to the program and be willing to help give moral support to student teachers as they work in your schools. For example, there will be times when student teachers will be having problems of one sort or another and will need nothing more than a sympathetic ear--a sounding board-~someone to try ideas out on. Sometimes the best person to try out ideas on is one who is not known very well by the student teacher. In short, the only kind of 237 238 involvement demanded of all teachers is a positive approach to student teachers and a willingness to have a program of this sort in your school. A second level of involvement would be working on a limited basis with one or more students. For example, it is entirely possible that some student teacher will want to teach for a period of time in their minor subject. This might mean being willing, if asked, to have a student teacher teach one of your classes for an hour a day for a week or two. In this instance your job as a supervisor would be to help the student teacher plan for that one class, observe . the student teaching and be available to talk to the student teacher after the teaching experience. Another example of limited involvement would be serving on a committee of class— room teachers whose job is to observe and help the student teacher. This would mean visiting the student teacher and watching him teach one or two times either in your own classroom or in someone else's classroom. This second level would also involve participation in some student teaching committee meetings to discuss the progress made by a given student teacher and to offer suggestions for strengthening that student teacher's performance. A third level of involvement would be a willingness to work with one or more student teachers on a more or less regular basis, having these people teach a number of your classes, not necessarily full time but a good bit of the time. This might also include serving as chairman of a committee for a given student teacher. It is recognized at the outset that we will have some peOple involved at each of these loosely defined levels. This program will succeed only if we have almost everybody involved at the first suggested level and if we have sub- stantial numbers involved at the second and third suggested levels. One of the reasons for proposing this kind of a program is that student teachers have always been well received and gotten excellent background and preparation in this school district. What we are asking in this instance is only a continuation of what has been true in the past. That is, we are sure that all of you will approach this with an Open mind and will be willing at the very least to with- hold judgment on the program until we find out how it actually will work. As an integral part of this total program, which is not confined to student teaching, we can arrange for a number of curriculum meetings involving many of you in one way or another. These meetings can be scheduled for the most part during the school day. These could be a continuation of work already in progress by curriculum committees of one 239 sort or another or programs that have been discussed and seen as desirable by administrators and by teachers. Hope- fully, you will be making use of the time that supervising teachers ordinarily have during the school day to work on whatever problems you as a faculty decide need your attention. While most of these meetings will involve a limited number of classroom teachers they need not be limited only to those who are currently working with student teachers. The student teaching program gains from this kind of activity in that it offers an Opportunity for student teachers to see a faculty in action, participating actively in curriculum work. This program will only work if all of us, student teachers, faculty members, administrators, and MSU personnel involved, are free to ask questions and to propose changes at any time. In short, if we work together to build the best possible program for each student teacher and utilize the time while student teachers are here to attack pertinent curriculum or teaching problems defined by you we could all benefit. 240 POSITION PAPER ON STUDENT TEACHING PROGRAMS DEVELOPED BY DEANS AND DIRECTORS OF MICHIGAN TEACHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS INTRODUCTION Representatives of the teacher preparation institutions in Michigan have been working together for the past two years to develOp improved programs of teacher education. Field experiences for student teachers have received special attention. There has been general agreement that developing closer partnerships with public school offers real hope for greatly strengthening teacher education programs and simultaneously providing improved in—service education Opportunities for the teachers in the schools. This paper is an attempt to provide guidelines for such a program. It represents ideas which have been agreed upon in principle by representatives of the various institutions involved. It is recognized, however, that adaptations of the model program must be made by the several institutions to accomodate the unique characteristics and goals of each. It is hoped the proposed program model will stimulate discussion with pubilc school personnel concerning the development of cooperative relationships from which mutual benefit may result. PROGRAM DESIGN In designing the structure of a model student teaching program, four main principles were considered paramount. They were: 1. The_program for student teachers should provideggreat flexibility so that strengths and weaknesses of individual students will determine the speEIIIc program eaCh will fOllow. 7 One of the frequent criticisms of our present programs of student teaching is our failure to provide for individual differences among our students. Regardless of the maturity, academic aptitude, natural ability or other personal factors involved, all students are marched through the same kind of program, for the same length of time, with little attempt made to especially design a student teaching experience 241 around their particular strengths and weaknesses. We advocate individual attention but often put all students through a lock-step program with little thought to their individual needs. An individually designed program can build upon the unique competencies of each student teacher. 2. The student teacher should be involved in a program which is designed to provide contact with several teachers and“ various teaEhing styles. Present programs of student teaching commonly call for the assignment of the prospective teacher to an experienced teacher who is responsible for his "supervision." This usually means the student spends most of his time in the classroom of his supervisor with little chance for exposure to other teaching models. A well designed student teaching experience should not be so narrowly structured. Instead, it should provide for contact between the student teacher and several different classroom teachers, enabling him to learn from each as he seeks to develOp his own teaching style. 3. The program should be structured to provide magy other kinds of school experiences for the student teacher in addition to classroom teaching. We have always verbalized a desire for students to take part in many activities in the school besides that of teaching a group of thirty youngsters in the normal class- room environment. Usually, however, no formal structure exists to ensure that such Opportunities are offered. We have, in fact, frequently scheduled the student full time with a single teacher and thereby limited his opportunities to participate in other activities which would have learning value for him. There are many things of importance for a student teacher to learn about a school and his role in it in addition to those which take place within the four walls of his classroom. 4. Effective means should be developed to bring practicing teachers and teacher preparation institutions into a true partnerShip in the deSign and implementation of teacher education programs. ' Colleges and universities often tend to work in isola- tion at the task of producing better teachers for the nation's classrooms. Greater involvement of classroom practitioners can add strength to the design and implementation of programs of teacher preparation. Their involvement can facilitate 242 blend of the practical and the theoretical which can help keep teacher education programs relevant to the needs of prospective teachers. A PROPOSED MODEL Students should spend full-time in student teaching and be assigned to school buildings in clusters with one university faculty member responsible for guiding the experiences of the students in no more than two buildings. These buildings should be in as close proximity as possible and the total number of students assigned per faculty member should not exceed twenty. Scheduling clusters of students in this way will permit assigning a college faculty member to work with them full time. He then, along with a liaison person from the teaching staff of the building, can develop a program for each student on a weekly or sometimes even daily basis. Each student's schedule will include, of course, a good deal of classroom teaching experience but not necessarily under the supervision of a single teacher. For example, the student might be teaching three classes in Social Studies but under the guidance of three different teachers. In addition, the student will engage in an organized program, designed especially for him, to learn about the many other facets of a teacher's job outside the formal classroom setting. Included might be such things as (a) working with small groups or individuals in remedial tutoring situations; (b) visiting homes of students and learning about community activities; (c) learning about the administration of a school as viewed by the principal, attendance officer, custodian or groundskeeper; (d) learning about and working with social agencies influential in the community; and (e) becoming familiar with the special services of the school, (guidance, remedial reading, school nurse, library, audio- visual aids and the like). Student teachers should be assigned by the university instructor in COOperation with the building liaison person designated by the school, to a schedule of activities designed to foster the greatest possible learning of the student teacher during the ensuing period. The individualized schedule for each student should be examined weekly or oftener and revised as other experiences promise to provide a better learning opportunity for him. Normally, assignment to at least one or two teachers and classes would be continued for several weeks in order to provide an extended experience with the same group of students and permit the develOpment 243 of long range units of instruction. Other scheduled activities would be chosen after careful assessment of the growth rate and identified needs of the student. The activities chosen would be selected not only to help develOp the professional competencies of the student, but also the personal, social and academic competencies. There should be a planned sequence of activities in which student teachers would engage as they progress toward the more complex problems of instruction. In addition to having contact with several teachers and classes to observe instructional styles, a student would have contact and experience with succeedingly more difficult methods of instruction e.g. lecture, discussion, unit teaching, problem solving, and inquiry learning, and would move through as many of these as he is capable of and as rapidly as he is capable of moving. The university instructors working in the schools should be constantly alert to Opportunities for cooperation between the university and the public schools. They should provide the channel for dialogue between the campus and the school classroom. They can, through close association with the teaching staff, identify teachers for appointment to college planning committees and can be identified to help with public school problems. It is at this point that the academic Specialist plays a vital role working COOperatively with school district personnel. By conducting subject matter seminars, serving as a consultant on curriculum and other instructional problems and by participating in jointly planned experimental projects of an innovative nature, the academic specialist can exert a direct impact on the quality of the total educational program. Another important function of the academic specialist will be to assist the university field instructor in improving the skills of teachers and to aid those student teachers who may be having difficulties relating to their subject matter field. ANTICIPATED BENEFITS FROM THE PROPOSED PROGRAM Each participating institution has unique resources. A student teaching program designed in this manner permits these resources to flow freely among participants. The exchange between the institutions then is one of professional services rather than monetary reward. The benefits antici- pated under the proposed program include: 244 A. TO THE STUDENT The more capable students will be permitted, encouraged, and expected to reach higher levels of competency than is achieved in the usual program where they often reach a plateau early in the student teaching period and continue through the experience without much additional challenge. The less capable students will be able to move at a pact more apprOpriate to their abilities, and while not schieving competence in all phases of teaching, will reach a satisfactory level in the minimum program without the frustration of over—expectation. More student teachers will have contact with the very outstanding teachers in the building. These master teachers can serve as models for several student teachers instead of restricting their contact to "their own" single student teacher. Students will observe and gain experience with many kinds of problems and activities in a way not possible in the typical program. These might include: a. Problems of the new teacher (The current defini- tion of a "Supervising teacher" precludes contact by a student teacher with first-year teachers). b. Problems of handling “difficult" student groups. (Assignments are normally voluntary on the super- vising teachers part, and most teachers of "difficult" groups are unwilling to have student teachers as- signed to them for their full-time experience in the traditional program.) c. Instructional techniques for slow learners or academically talented students. (Not many of these groups are available in the typical school and since the room is something other than absolutely "normal" is usually not chosen as a student teaching station.) There can be higher morale among student teachers~ because of an increased Opportunity to share common concerns with their peers and to assist each other with their problems. Students can have a better relationship with the teachers in the building. The proposed program provides for shifting assignments and schedules when advisable so changes will not be identified as resulting from failure on an indi- vidual teacher's part. In addition, the teacher is relieved of the often burdensome responsibility of having the student teacher continuously in his presence. 245 B. TO THE TEACHERS AND THE SCHOOL Some classroom teachers are hesitant to accept the full responsibility for a student teacher and thus never realize the satisfaction that can come from working with teachers in preparation. The proposed program will enable students and teachers to develop short term contacts in order to try out the relationship. Those contacts can continue so long as they are productive for the student and the teacher, or can be terminated if this action seems in the best interests of either. The inservice growth opportunities for the classroom teacher will be greatly increased. The university represent- ative can work directly with the staff to determine their needs and interests as a basis for arranging university participation in in-service activities. The exact nature of this involvement would be developed in an unique manner for each school according to its operating procedures and needs. The greatly increased instructional resources available in a school building makes possible the release of individual teachers on occasion from their normal responsibilities. They thus can have time to do some of the things which normal duties do not ordinarily permit, such as: plan and prepare for highly creative teaching; work on curriculum problems or the like; work with individual pupils or groups; and work with parents or with representatives of community service agencies. The school program can be enhanced and enriched by many activities which the students can Well direct as they gain experience with pupils and programs. Additional special talents in arts and crafts, vocal and instrumental music, creative dramatics, athletics, etc. help add to the resources available to the children. The presence of student teachers in a school can have a healthy psychological effect upon experienced teachers. Students often bring with them new ideas and the very fact that they are around can inspire regular teachers to be better than they normally are. The increased instructional resources would provide for additional aid in the classroom proper, and also provide remedial services of many kinds for small groups or individ- uals outside the formal classroom setting. One other benefit to the school system has long been recognized. This is the opportunity it provides for the school district to employ excellent beginning teachers. 246 There is little doubt that students who have a pleasant and successful experience during their student teaching feel a security in the school where these experiences took place. Under the proposed program, the school district will have an opportunity to observe the performance of the student in a variety of situations and can make more valid judgments about whether to offer employment on a permanent basis. C. TO THE PUPILS IN THE SCHOOL Pupils in the schools have sometimes served without choice, as guinea pigs for teacher education programs. The primary reason for any negative reaction from them or their parents is that student teaching programs have not been designed to serve the best interests of the pupils. The proposed program would make possible the advantage of additional personnel, new ideas and a stimulating learning climate provided by professionals in preparation. Pupils would have an increased opportunity for individ- ual attention and individual instruction. This would be more likely to occur than in the usual program because of the flexible schedule for student teachers and the help they would have in planning individualized sessions with specific pupils. D. TO THE COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY An institution charged with the responsibility for preparing new teachers has as its first concern offering the best possible program its faculty is able to design for this purpose. It is obvious then, that if the program leads to better prepared teachers it is helping the insti- tution to realize its goal. However, there are other distinct advantages to the institution of higher education which should be identified. One is that the proposed program allows for the university faculty member's time to be used more efficiently and effec- tively. He no longer must spend many hours in his auto- mobile traveling from school to school, but instead can spend his time where he can be most useful, with the students in his charge. The element of greatly increased time available to his students makes it possible for him to become a much more effective instructor. Now he can work closely with his students on the unique problems of each. Under the tradi- tional system which makes possible only a very limited contact with each student teacher, the university representa- tive really has little chance to affect the behavior of the student in a very meaningful way. 247 Developing effective in-service education programs for teachers in cooperating public schools also, in a sense, provides in-service education for the college or university staff members working with these programs. They are forced to stay close to the problems of the classroom teacher and can't become isolated within the ivy-covered walls of a college divorced from the realities of teaching and teachers. This can have a very wholesome effect upon what takes place in the preparation program of the pro- spective teacher. Approved by Deans and Directors January 11, 1968 TYL IIIIIIIIII“ 5722 M'IIIIIIIIIIITIIINIIIIIIIII 3 129 3 03 14 5