Faculty instruct local K-12 teachers
By KATE NAGENGAST
News Writer
A symbolic handshake with the South Bend community, Notre Dame's newly adopted professional development program, "Teachers as Scholars" (TAS), invites kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers from the area to attend two-day seminars taught by Arts and Letters faculty.
"I really like the idea behind this program where Notre Dame is reaching out to integrate in a more dynamic way with members of the community, especially with other teachers … it's a neat handshake," said Carolyn Nordstrom, associate professor of anthropology.
Nordstrom's TAS seminar on Thursday tackled the issue of children and war as it relates to orphans in war-torn countries and even students in American schools who have experienced violence.
"It is interesting to see how this applies to our own lives as far as children who are in schools at war with a variety of things — drugs and alcohol, early sex … and respect for self," said Judy Simone, counselor at South Bend's St. Joseph's High School.
Begun at Harvard University as a collaborative project with the Brookline (Mass.) Public School District, the TAS program received funding from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Fund (WWNFF) to become a nationwide professional development program in the early 1990s. With 15 colleges and universities across the country already participating in the program, TAS was brought to Notre Dame last year by Arts and Letters associate dean Julia Douthwaite and Theodore Cachey, associate professor of romance languages and literature.
"When you ask teachers what a typical professional development program is like for them the classic answer is pedagogy — they learn how to teach their students. What's happening here is that they are becoming students again," said Bridget Green, TAS coordinator.
"Many people say the teachers seem so rejuvenated when they return to their classrooms; they have a whole new energy," Green continued. "It's not because they know how to teach better but because they remember what it's like to be a student.
"Plus, they've been reintroduced to current ideas and scholarly information that makes them feel appreciated as very intelligent individuals. For most of these teachers that's why they became teachers in the first place — because they loved learning and passing on that knowledge," Green said.
In order to encourage interaction and discussion, TAS seminars are limited to 15 participants. With five seminars per semester, the program currently provides for 120 participants per year, 40 from each of three area school districts.
TAS is funded by the WWNFF, the community and the College of Arts and Lettrs, so teachers participate free of charge. Although WWNFF funding will only be provided for the next two years, the coordinators of TAS hope Notre Dame will pick up the funding in the future.
"I think we are trying to keep the program at this level of participation because funding is limited and it keeps the seminars interesting," Green said. "A huge part of the success of this program can be attributed to top-notch faculty members. We have wonderful, dedicated, excited, well-known and well-published faculty contributing to the program right now."
"Notre Dame faculty members are also going to be impacted because this is an opportunity for them to come out of their sometimes insular and scholarly shell," she added. "They can teach a class of adult individuals who have tons of teaching experience and can give them ideas about what's going on in the community and how their teaching relates to that, which I think is the most exciting part of the program from both ends."
All News Stories for Monday, April 3, 2000
