When General Electric Co. engineer Jon Shemwell decided he wanted to become a teacher, spending the time and money on a traditional graduate program in education wasn’t an option. But Northwestern’s 13-month alternative teaching certification program was.
In response to the national teacher shortage, universities and other nonprofit organizations are training more teachers through different initiatives such as NU’s program.
Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America, will speak at 6:30 p.m. today about opportunities for recent graduates to begin teaching immediately in low-income schools, where shortages are most severe.
Chicago Public Schools sought to hire 3,000 new teachers in the 2001-02 school year, according to the district’s Web site. About 2.4 million new teachers will be needed nationally in the next 11 years, the National Center for Education Statistics estimates.
In 1998 NU’s School of Education and Social Policy began addressing this demand, especially in math and science, and since then about 150 students have graduated from the program, said Education Dean Penelope Peterson. Teacher Education Alternative for Chicago, or NU-TEACH, allows professionals with an undergraduate degree to train for eight weeks in the summer and teach in Chicago public schools that fall.
During their first year of teaching, participants attend bi-monthly seminars at NU and return for discussion the following summer. If they continue teaching in Chicago for four years, they can apply for a teaching certificate.
“I thought just by knowing physics, it would make me a good teacher. I was wrong,” said Shemwell, now a physics teacher at Lincoln Park High School. “Teaching is something you have to learn.”
The University of Illinois at Chicago piloted a similar initiative called Middle Grades Math in the summer. Originally, UIC worried that professionals would need more training than eight weeks of NU-TEACH could provide, said Kathryn Chval, former co-director of MGM.
But UIC has since reconsidered its stance.
“Through those traditional routes, we cannot produce enough math and science teachers,” said Chval, currently a program director at the National Science Foundation. “(Professionals) bring such a wealth of knowledge that they can do it in only 13 months.”
Teach for America also attracts recent college graduates who might not have otherwise considered teaching. For five weeks in the summer, students train intensively through hands-on experience, discussions and workshops. That fall they go teach for two years at one of 20 low-income teaching sites nationwide.
Malayna Bernstein, TFA’s alumni recruiter at NU, said her TFA teaching experience prompted her to continue in the education field.
“I was exposed to 200 people every day, ” said Bernstein, now an Education doctoral student. “You have this real strong daily impact on all these people.”
TFA accepted 27 percent of applicants last year, but still sent 951 new teachers to schools. Almost two-thirds of its teachers remain in education after their formal commitment ends, according to a TFA fact sheet and Bernstein.
Both TFA and alternative programs like NU-TEACH and MGM take advantage of new teachers’ enthusiasm by fast-tracking their education training.
“If we could put the some of the best, brightest and most committed people in urban schools, we could really make a difference in these schools,” said Sylvia Smith-Demuth, director of NU-TEACH.
