In the coming decades, the United States' population is expected to become more diverse. Despite this, teachers of color remain significantly underrepresented in K-12 classrooms, and those serving historically marginalized communities are increasingly leaving their teaching positions. This highlights an ongoing challenge in teacher education, both…

While circulating the room during a classroom activity where preservice teachers are required to teach a mini-lesson to their classmates, Jane Metty's ear was drawn to one particular group where a student asked, "What color is blood?"--and heard the student teacher confidently answer, "Blue." She then began to wonder where…

In this article, readers offer their perspectives on whether pre-service physical educators should be required to demonstrate a proficient level of performance in a wide variety of physical activities. They also suggest activities that are essential for all physical educators.

In this article, the author discusses five major priorities that should guide teacher education in preparing teachers for their work in a democratic society. These priorities are of equal importance in preparing teachers to enter schools and do the work necessary to sustain a democratic society. They require purposeful planning and enactment of…

To help preservice teachers develop and maintain a professional commitment to educational quality and educational equity, teacher education programs must promote culturally relevant assessment and evaluation practices. It is not enough to understand the ways that current assessment and evaluation practices are biased against specific student…

In this article, the author responds to the paper "Exploring pre-service teachers' understanding of statistical variation: Implications for teaching and research" by Sashi Sharma (see EJ779107). In that paper, Sharma described a study "designed to investigate pre-service teachers' acknowledgment of variation in sampling and…

Ideologies of education and of teaching are complex and layered, and they contain macro-social, institutional as well as micro-ideological levels. Building on cases from the UK and South Africa, this paper argues that notions of "professionalism" among teachers display such ideological layering, and that such notions are heavily invested…

Theorizing about teacher education and democracy is a challenging task in the year 2009. According to this author, the antidemocratic forces of the social efficiency movement have intensified with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, and recent activities of the Obama Department of Education have ratcheted up social efficiency's premise…

The issue of teacher quality has emerged with special force recently; between 2000 and 2005, at least 15 reports addressing teacher quality from a public policy perspective have been produced (Cochran-Smith & Fries, 2005). The National Research Council has been charged by the U.S. Congress to do a national study of teacher preparation programs to…

In this paper, I offer my own counterstory of matriculating through a teacher education program as an African American student on a predominately White campus as a reference point for thinking through how racism operates through teacher education's dominant discourse and practice of teacher reflection. It is an important story to tell primarily…

Coke (2005) argues that vertical cooperative learning is needed between elementary and secondary school teachers. While this would help with the transition between grades and subjects, it is dependent upon school principals to implement these cooperative learning meetings. Drawing upon prior experience, the author advocates that pre-service social…

American science teachers in elementary and middle school face a dilemma as they prepare students for high school physics and advanced placement classes. The dilemma lies in ensuring that these students are equipped with the high-level science content they need to thrive in such classes. Aside from life sciences and chemistry sciences, how are our…

In this article, the author examines the ways in which the claim to subaltern status has led to a partial withdrawal from state-run institutions and to a practice of schooling that is meant to equip the children of authoritarian populist parents both with an armor to defend what these groups believe is their threatened culture and with a set of…

Five curricular options which can be adopted for special education teacher training programs are discussed and evaluated as possible alternatives for addressing the computer literacy needs of special educators. (JW)

The author of this article describes why, while as a student in the Northeastern University teacher preparation program, she chose not to become a teacher in the public schools. She felt that her philosophy of education, stemming from the concept of the person-centered classroom as espoused by Carl Rogers and Jerome Freiberg in "Freedom to…