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Evolving Partnerships:
Universities, Urban Schools, and Community Organizations in Teacher Education
Gail Burnaford, Northwestern University, John Kretzmann, Northwestern
University, Charles Meyers, Facing History and Ourselves
2003
American Educational Research Association
Chicago, IL
Gail Burnaford – g-burnaford@northwestern.edu
John Kretzmann – j-kretzmann@northwestern.edu
Charles Meyers - chuck_meyers@facing.org
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Introduction
The theme of this year’s AERA is Accountability for Educational Quality:
Shared Responsibility. The theme evokes a particular reaction as we view the dilemmas
of educating a new generation of teachers – one that remains typically white, female, and
middle class - who will find themselves teaching in diverse, multilingual, multiethnic
communities in which they do not live. Our response has been to rethink the term ‘shared
responsibility’ and to assess what it is that we are doing and not doing at the university
level to design our programs as ‘shared responsibilities.’ We were challenged to consider
the issue of who engages in teacher preparation, for what purposes, and to what ends.
The question that logically follows is, shared responsibility with whom? We have
come to understand that communities and community organizations can become a part of
the education of future teachers – if the agenda for doing so is a mutual one and if teacher
candidates can contribute to the welfare of the organizations while learning how best to
work in neighborhood schools.
Nationally, the INTASC principles/standards regarding community suggest that
this approach to shared responsibility is both beneficial and essential, particularly for
university programs that work directly with urban schools. Peter Murrell’s work,
articulates the notion of ‘the community teacher’ as a profile of what we need to develop
in educational professionals (2001). Northeastern University’s undergraduate Secondary
Teaching program has begun to define partnerships that contribute to the development of
such a community teacher. These partnerships are both within the university and in the
communities that surround it.
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At Northwestern University, we have taken the challenge embedded in the
INTASC standards, coupled with our university’s commitment to community
development, collaboration, and engagement in urban schools, to design the first step in a
process that engages our undergraduates in learning to teach in and through community
interaction.
In my section of the paper, I will describe the guided internship and work in a
course called Introduction to Schooling in Communities from the perspective of the
School of Education and Social Policy’s undergraduate teacher education program. I will
discuss what was missing in our rather conservative approach to teacher education, what
was the impetus for engaging in a new approach, and what we hope to move toward in
the next five years. I will also raise the issues that are problematic in suggesting that
teachers can learn about teaching in experiences outside the scope of traditional
classrooms and the research base that continues to inform our work.
John (Jody) Kretzmann is the co-instructor, with Gail Burnaford of the Schooling
in Communities course we are describing. For more than three decades, Kretzmann has
worked with urban neighborhoods. He has been a community organizer and developer,
and has consulted and conducted research with scores of community-based organizations
across North America and beyond. For the last 15 years, his community-focused policy
work has been centered at Northwestern's Institute for Policy Research, where he founded
and co-directs the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute. The ABCD
Institute builds on the analyses and strategies outlined in his popular book Building
Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a
Community's Assets, (with John L. McKnight), and works to discover and analyze the
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ongoing community building inventions which continue to emerge in diverse settings
across the globe.
The very fact that we have an education course in the School of Education and
Social Policy that integrates Dr. Kretzmann’s prospective, not just for social policy
majors, but also for teacher education students, speaks to the commitment that the school
has to interdisciplinary education with a purpose. In Jody’s presentation, he will describe
the types of community partnerships we have been exploring over the past two years and
how his own work intersects with the goals of the teacher education program. He will
describe the notion of asset-based community development as a core principle of our
program that shapes our students’ views of the schools and the students they will
encounter during their university program and future teaching careers.
The third perspective is offered by Chuck Meyers, Senior Program Associate for
the professional development organization, Facing History and Ourselves. Facing History
and Ourselves (http://www.facinghistorycampus.org) uses the historical case study of the
Holocaust to explore the intricacies of democracy. By concentrating upon such themes as
identity and community, inclusion and exclusion, judgment and legacy, Facing History
forges a connection between the past and the present, between the lives of students and
the greater world around them. Through the study of history, Facing History suggests
that knowing is the key to doing and that participation is a critical element of democratic
behavior.
Chuck is an experienced classroom teacher who believes in the need to connect
ongoing professional development of teachers with pre-service teacher education. He
will describe how content-based experiences can be mutually satisfying and enriching
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when pre-service and experienced teachers learn and plan together – with help from a
community partner. He will also describe what it may take for a professional
development organization to successfully partner with a university. While Facing
History is not necessarily typical of the community organizations that we have identified
as partners, in that our students do not work directly with children or young people in
Facing History internships, it is with Facing History and Chuck Meyers that we have
truly conceptualized what could happen in meaningful and rich community partnerships.
Finally, we will briefly discuss our findings regarding student response to the
approach and perspective offered by a community teaching model for teacher
preparation.
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TEACHER EDUCATION PERSPECTIVE
Murrell’s text on community teaching begins with several statistics. He notes that
the nation’s public schools will have to hire 2.5 million teachers over the next decade –
about the same as the numbers now working (2.8 million) (Murrell, 2001, p. 11).
Students in those schools, he continues, are increasingly culturally diverse and nonWhite, and the population of teacher candidates is increasingly monocultural and White.
Our university teacher candidate profile is consistent with that description of the teacher
population; we work with schools in metropolitan Chicago that reflect the diversity
indicated by this national view.
By some accounts, of the students who enter four-year teacher education
programs, only 50-70 percent actually graduate with degrees in education; of these, only
60 to 70 percent enter teaching the year after graduation; and only about 70 percent are
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still teaching three to five years later (NCTAF, 1996). Research seems to indicate that
five year programs or master’s degree teacher certification programs have more success
with teacher preparation in that candidates tend to enter and stay in teaching longer than
their four-year program peers (Andrew and Schwab, 1995). At our institution, we are
addressing this challenge and examining what undergraduate teacher education might
look like if it addresses the particular developmental needs of this student population, the
current demographics of the teaching profession, and the needs of partner urban schools.
Can teacher education be accomplished well in a four-year undergraduate
program? Should it even be attempted?
The enormous popularity of the Teach for
America program would indicate that there is tremendous appeal in teaching among welleducated, passionate young people…for the short term. Darling-Hammond has, however,
critiqued the program for its failure to fully prepare teachers for urban classrooms (1994).
She writes: It is clear from the evidence that TFA is bad policy and bad education. It is
bad for the recruits because they are ill-prepared. …It is bad for the schools in which
they teach because the recruits often create staffing disruptions and drain on school
resources….It is bad for the children because they are often poorly taught (p. 33).
Many of the undergraduates at our institution are target candidates for Teach for
America. What does the School of Education and Social Policy have to offer that
students cannot find in such a program? How can we design a program that appeals to
such undergraduates and also prepares them for teaching in diverse schools? What kinds
of experiences belong in such a program at the undergraduate level? That has been our
challenge.
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Within the field of teacher education, we are often encumbered by traditional
systems for preparing future teachers that are enormously difficult to dismantle. We are
not the only university in town and schools are very accustomed to juggling multiple
student interns from several higher education institutions. They are not expected to be
able to adjust their schedules and experiences in any radical way to ensure that our
university’s teacher candidates have a particular kind of experience in their school
community. For some of our partner schools, it is challenge enough to remember how
many weeks a teacher candidate will be there and whether the experience is a practicum
or a student teaching assignment.
While some universities have been successful in establishing professional
development schools as an alternative to mass placement, even professional development
schools have offered little in the way of meaningful frameworks for looking deeply at
partnerships. They are structures that serve teacher education, but they do not begin to
offer the necessary theoretical perspective on partnering on multiple levels, for multiple
purposes, and with a variety of constituencies in and outside of the school building
(Murrell, 1998).
To provide a bit more context, teacher education programs typically find it
extremely difficult to challenge the norms that candidates hold fast from their own
considerable experiences as students. These experiences reinforce what Ball and Cohen
have termed the ‘conservatism of practice’ (1999) that is their only frame of reference for
fashioning their own identities as teachers.
School districts and their communities do not exist independently of one another,
even though their structures and cultures may be different and complex (Annenberg
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Institute, 2002). Our investigation of teacher education in our community began with the
acceptance of the connections between schools and communities, which while obvious
has often been ignored in our profession. We also began with a guiding belief and
considerable experience in partnerships (for Burnaford, partnerships in the arts, for
Kretzmann, partnerships in community organizations, and for Meyers, partnerships with
school districts and teachers) as a means to develop, implement, and critique pre-service
teacher education. We approach this challenge in a manner consistent with the culture of
our own institutions, the urban center in which we live, and the students that we teach.
First, we acknowledge our sense of what our university undergraduates want and
need. It seems self-evident that prospective teachers need to see their future students as
individual learners and honor differences among them. Our students have most often
entered the academy equipped with multiple advanced placement credits from wellresourced public and private schools who are committed to making a difference, but who
have had little or no experience with students without the social capital that they blithely
possess. In teacher education in such institutions, our primary task may well be the
challenge of helping such candidates for the teaching profession not to see the students as
the ‘other’ (Ball and Cohen, 1999). What kinds of experiences do students need during
their four years at an institution in order to be prepared to know young people in such
ways that they do see commonalities with themselves and that they do set expectations
that all students can learn?
From our view, it is the university’s role to assist teacher candidates in exploring
communities – not just classrooms – in order to begin this lifelong process of knowing a
world view that may not be their own but which hold some possible connections with
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their own that will allow them to teach with success. This means that the study of
teaching need not take place in a classroom exclusively or first. For us, this means
studying what teaching means by beginning outside a classroom – in the community.
We are investigating the courses, processes, research opportunities, field experiences, and
relationships that can help teacher candidates move from outside the school into the
classroom, better prepared to address the learning needs of urban students.
We are therefore minimizing the value of long periods of observation in
classrooms, favoring instead the implementation of internships prior to practicum/student
teaching in which teachers are sometimes in schools, but most often in after school drop
in centers, media development organizations, structured recess programs, museums,
parent/neighborhood associations, and alternative school programs. In order to design a
teacher education system around elements beyond the apprenticeship of observation
(Darling-Hammond, 2000) followed by what is often a ‘sink or swim’ student teaching
assignment, it is necessary to develop the relationships in communities of practice
beyond the university. We have begun to establish dialogues with people and partnership
organizations that have not typically been involved in teacher education. While these
partners may not see themselves as teacher educators, that is the role that is emerging for
them. Similarly, although we in the academy have not always typically been engaged in
communities of practice beyond our institutions, that is where we see a new practice for
teacher education emerging in which responsibility for teacher education is authentically
shared.
The Arts Education Partnership is a national coalition of arts, education, business,
philanthropic, and government organizations that promotes the essential role of the arts in
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schools. Recently, AEP released a report of a National Forum on Partnerships Improving
Teaching of the Arts (2002). In that report, collaboratives from across the country
discussed this topic: The practices of professional development and pre-service
education and why partnerships should integrate them.
They write: Universities have
the primary responsibility for pre-service training. While universities work closely with
k-12 districts to prepare pre-service teachers, collaboration with other partners is
sparse. The report continues, noting the essential contributions that partnership with
cultural and community organizations can make to pre-service education, acknowledging
the similar value of involving higher education faculty and programs in course work,
professional development, and research.
Remer describes a form of partnership that across constituencies that invites
further consideration in teacher education program design (1996). In her analysis, a
partnership that is a joint venture moves beyond a one-time event and becomes sustained
and focused around student learning needs over time. In such joint ventures, there are
mutual interests addressed and mutual benefits in terms of program and capacity. For
teacher educators, a joint venture suggests multiple mentors for teacher candidates
beyond the traditional classroom teacher. Where can one learn to teach and how does
learning happen? Bringing others into the pedagogical mix will help our field to further
develop our often narrow, standards-based scope on what teaching is and how we know it
is happening. Joint ventures bring multiple perspectives and definitions to the table.
This approach to teacher education also draws on the perspective of teacher-asresearcher – a stance which charges pre-service candidates, as well as their professional
teacher mentors to investigate their own practices through careful data collection on their
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teaching and learning. Teacher research also challenges practitioners to see teaching as
listening – to students, to peers, and to community members who have something to
contribute to what we know about teaching and learning (Burnaford, Fischer, and
Hobson, 2001). In Schooling in Communities, students begin to develop skills in taking
field notes and observing intentionally and carefully in their sites. They are also assigned
to interview someone in their internship sites, after preparing a protocol that is informed
by readings and experiences in the course, but also provides for the unique contribution
of the site and the informant. Upon completing the interview this term, one candidate
commented: I’ve never been asked to actually talk to someone before since I’ve been in
college. We’re usually just asked to read and research online or in the library. Active
interviewing has resulted in relationships with students, teachers, community organizers,
parents, and youth workers that would otherwise never have occurred.
In the course, Introduction to Schooling in Communities, we offer the initial
framework for such joint ventures in which partners – other than classrooms – get to
define teaching for our students. These mentors surface in guided internships in which
our students spend required internship hours working directly with students, teachers,
community organizers, parents, and activists outside traditional classrooms. (See Table
1) The course supports the internships by engaging speakers and readings to help bridge
gaps between what students are seeing and what they thought they knew about schools,
students, and themselves. They explore these connections in on-line site group
conversations and ‘present’ their site to the class at the end of the course. They link
topics of asset-based community development, school reform, partnerships, and views on
teaching in communities with their own experiences in their sites.
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A visit to Prologue Alternative School in Chicago introduces our university
sophomores and juniors to the notion that high school ‘push outs’ (the more correct term
for many drop outs, in our city) have strong advice for prospective teachers, weighted by
their own experience and by their renewed conviction that education is important, despite
what their teachers and their former school lives have indicated. (See Table 2) These
teen-age parents, former gang-bangers, occasional ex-cons have become our students’
teachers and mentors – if only for a short time. Our students have different conceptions
of teaching and learning – because they have been in a room discussing learning with
students who have always been ‘other’, but who have something to teach our privileged,
usually white, university students.
Mentors for our candidates also take the persona of Latina mothers from a
neighborhood association. These mothers, speaking through an interpreter, explain how
parents are teachers – a concept, though often clichéd – that is an insight to many
students – especially as it relates to a student population that has been, ‘other.’ These
moms, working through a neighborhood association, have become a force in
schools…the schools that our teacher candidates are encountering and will some day
employ them. These mothers too have taken on the role of teacher educators as our
university interns work beside them at Logan Square Neighborhood Association.
There are other programs in the country that have incorporated this community
focus into their teacher education models. The Harvard Family Research Project
recommended that a family focus be introduced to teacher training through communitybased field experiences (Bradley, 1997). The University of California at Santa Cruz and
the University of Houston have also incorporated elements of community learning in
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their teacher education designs. Tellez and Cohen (1996) from Houston describe this
form of teacher education as ‘grinding cultural lenses.’
It is most certainly a step
toward seeing students as more than ‘other’.
Figure 1
Northwestern University
School of Education and Social Policy
Guided Internships
For
Introduction to Schooling in Communities course
(TEACH_ED 304)
What is a guided internship? The internship is a field experience in which students enrolled in the
course observe in a community organization or school setting, provide needed services to that organization,
and actively participate with staff and students as the sites propose. Students are required to log a
minimum of 40 hours at the site, which averages to 4 hours per week for the 10 week quarter. Often,
interns return to the site and continue to volunteer there after the quarter is over.
The term ‘guided’ is used to describe the internship because, although the university students are
intelligent, motivated, and enthusiastic, we know that they need some coordination and leadership at the
site in order to be successful and helpful to the organization. Unlike more traditional tutoring or student
volunteer programs, the Schooling in Communities Guided Internship is intended to be a service project
and an outreach program that is linked directly to a Northwestern course in which partnerships, community
organizations, and school reform are discussed.
What is the Introduction to Schooling in Communities course about? The goal of this course (open to
sophomores and juniors) is to prepare prospective teachers and others interested in community-based
education initiatives to interact meaningfully with community organizations that work with young people.
Teaching and learning occurs throughout adolescents’ lives; often we can learn about effective teaching by
looking outside of schools before we investigate pedagogy within classrooms. Guided internship in a site,
readings, and guest speakers enrich this course as participants explore community organizations, structures
for working with schools and teachers, and teaching in nontraditional settings. The course is consistent
with the Illinois Professional Teaching Standards and Northwestern’s Conceptual Framework.
What can interns do during a guided internship? Each internship and each site is different. But we
have found that the following four areas best reflect the typical experiences that students have had or could
have with a school/organization:
I.
Observation/Building Relationships
Setting a schedule/meeting the people at the site
Exchanging contact information
Taking field notes and observing activities
Asking questions/conducting an interview with a person on site
II.
Planning/Researching
Attending planning meetings
Doing curriculum research/lesson planning as requested by site leaders/teachers
Learning the specific tasks at that site for interns
III.
Participating/Implementing
Working with students – small group, large group, individual
Co-teaching
Videotaping
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Supervising youth activities
Mentoring
Working on projects with young people
Playing supervised sports or other activities with young people
Assist with limited clerical or technology tasks for the organization
Assist with limited tutoring
IV.
Documenting/Assessing
For interns’ own professional portfolios
For school or organization’s future use – curriculum design/project documentation
What are interns required to do during the internship in order to receive credit for the course?
 We would like each intern to plan and conduct an informal interview with a member of the staff
at their internship site. The purpose of the interview is to learn more about the organization or
school, the goals of programs working there, and the roles and responsibilities of people in the
organization. Interns would also benefit from hearing about the beliefs and experiences of the
staff member and how those experiences have shaped their work.
 In addition, each group of interns at a site prepares a final paper and interactive presentation about
the site and the internship. Interns use the readings and the discussions from the class as
frameworks for presenting what they have learned and what they have done at the site during
the quarter. Presentations will be done on _______________All site coordinators are invited to
attend.
 Finally, interns must complete logs recording their activity at the internship sites. We ask
that site coordinators (or other site representatives) initial those logs at each visit.
What does a site coordinator have to do?
Attend the first class meeting. (Honorarium of $50 will be provided.) Present a 2 –3 minute
presentation of the site to the class. Interns will then meet with site coordinators in small groups to begin
the planning and orientation process. (Annenberg Hall, Room G02 – see attached flier for directions/
agenda)
Help the intern(s) plan a workable schedule for doing the internship at the site.
Plan activities, tasks, and responsibilities for the intern during the 40 hours. (We want the work
interns do to be useful to the site and the coordinator.)
Sign logs recording attendance and participation.
Provide interns with any information/training/materials that would be useful and beneficial to all
involved.
Assist with or participate in one interview that students are asked to conduct on site.
If at any time you have questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact any of us.
Internship Coordinator at NU/ Course Teaching Assistant:
Betsi Burns Jacobson = b-burns@northwestern.edu 847 491-8801
Course Instructors
Dr. Jody Kretzmann – J-kretzmann@northwestern.edu = 847 491-3518
Dr. Gail Burnaford - g-burnaford@northwestern.edu 847 491-3829
Thank you for getting involved with NU’s guided internships. We hope that our students are helpful
and make a genuine contribution in your school or community organization!
Figure 2– Evolving Roles: Alternative School Students as Teacher Educators
It’s like a family here. I plan to go to college…that’s what they prepare you here for.
They teach me things I never paid any attention to in school. They go deeper here.
They’re pushing you just as hard as you’re willing to go.
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I guess they saw something in me.
The teachers really have a unique way… I like the way they come at you.
We have fun here.
Here, you get a second chance to do it right.
They teach us focus.
They teach us community organizing; we do protests, petitions; we fight for our school.
They teach me to slow my temper down – how to stop other from fighting – yoga.
We take 5 or 10 minutes to work on our breath. I breathe good now!
They teach us to open up…to go after what you really want.
They teach you what to do when you wake up so that you can get up in the morning.
They teach us, “This is your life, not your parents.”
They don’t like you sayin’ you can’t do it.
With Prologue, we make lifelong friends. We interact in classes.
Here, we show love.
The neighborhood school:
The school I came from couldn’t handle what was going on in the home.
I felt like I wasn’t getting enough attention.
The temptations of life didn’t let me finish.
Freshman orientation: you just happen to be in the wrong part of the building (at the back of the
auditorium) so you don’t hear anything. You need 2 or 3 teachers findin’ out what you need…..speakin’ to
each kid.
Regular high school needs to grab the kids.
Teachers keep sayin’ “Ask questions”. But then maybe they’re sayin’ “What a dumb question.”
They teach the same thing every day in the same way. It’s boring.
They go too fast for me.
In a high school, it’s hard to make good friends.
Advice for prospective teachers:
Take your time with students.
It’s just like basketball…if you don’t make it fun, kids won’t play.
Develop good negotiating skills!
Treat each other like family.
Slow down.
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COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT/POLICY PERSPECTIVE
One of the central principles of our Schooling in Communities course is, in fact, a focus
on the "assets" available in both schools and communities. To summarize briefly, this
focus was clarified by research into successful community development initiatives which
found that success often depended upon local leadership which rejected the idea that their
community was primarily characterized by crime, delinquency, drop-outs, homelessness,
teen pregnancy, etc., etc., even if all of these conditions clearly existed. Instead, while
acknowledging all of these challenges, and more, successful community builders worked
to rediscover and mobilize the resources or assets which exist in even the most devastated
communities. In the community development context, we began to understand that five
distinctive categories of local assets were most frequently engaged, and that virtually
every community contained some combination of these five: the skills and capacities of
individual residents; the power of local voluntary associations (block clubs, churches,
athletic groups, cultural clubs); the resources of local institutions (public, private and
non-profit); physical assets (land, buildings, infrastructure), and economic assets
(capacities to produce and to consume, a local market). Powerful community
development initiatives were those that rediscovered and celebrated all five categories of
asset, connected them with each other in creative partnerships, and mobilized them in the
service of community-generated plans and visions.
Obviously, our research revealed schools to be critical institutional assets in the
community development process. We began examining the roles schools were already
playing, as well as their potential roles, and eventually concluded that those schools
which were most effectively contributing to the well being of their communities were
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those which adopted a very expansive and creative understanding of their possible levels
of involvement. Not only were schools the settings in which professional educators
delivered curricula to people called students-they were also potential community centers
where a variety of spaces might be shared with the neighborhood, they were significant
employers, they were potential supporters of the local economy, they were repositories of
adult expertise and youth energies which could be refocused on community building
efforts. Clearly the opportunity to co-teach a course that explored the intersection of
community-based and school-based strengths was intriguing.
Schooling in Communities also made sense because in the world of community
development, a focus on schools had become much more salient in the last ten years.
After decades of ignoring schools and school reform efforts-often out of a sense that
nothing could be done-- community building leaders have rediscovered the critical roles
schools can play, and the very real possibilities for reconnecting them with community
development agendas. Michele Cahill (1996), in an occasional paper published by the
Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform, cites five clusters of activities that are
defining new school-community collaborations:
*Services Collaboration, in which comprehensive services for youth and families
are concentrated within the local school.
*Schools and Communities as Educational Partners, in which the cultural and
racial backgrounds of students and their families are celebrated through strengthened
joint activities and programs.
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*Schools and Communities as Partners in Youth Development, in which both
parties combine to create activities and programs which build the capacities of young
people as effective citizens and public actors.
*Schools as Assets for Community and Economic Development-see ABCD
summary above.
*New Schools/New Governance, in which more democratic and inclusive decisionmaking structures emerge at the local level.
Introduction to Schooling in Communities aims to prepare prospective teachers
and others interested in community-based education initiatives to interact meaningfully
with community organizations that work with young people. To that end, the course
includes a 40-hour "guided internship," as well as requirements for weekly reflections
and an in-depth interview. Substantively, the course uses lectures and community based
guests, as well as at least one site visit, to explore four dimensions of the topic: the
nature and variety of urban neighborhoods,(where students are shaped), understood as
both seriously challenged and filled with resources; school reform policies and initiatives
(e.g. the Annenberg Challenge) which emphasize, at least in part, community-school
partnerships; both public and alternative schools which represent exemplary efforts to
connect communities and schools; and finally, the varieties of roles classroom teachers
might play in linking children, schools, parents and communities.
Schooling in Communities was designed, in part, to expose future educators to
these and other possibilities in the emerging redefinitions of school-community
relationships. In fact, each of the directed internships is chosen for its capacity to reflect
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these changing relationships in powerful and creative ways. Beyond the rich relationships
with Beyond History, for example, students work with:
#The Logan Square Neighborhood Association, whose exemplary school-focused
organizing work is nationally celebrated. LSNA has created six community centers
within neighborhood schools-these centers host Northwestern interns. Here students
encounter not only young people but some of the 1500 parents engaged as tutors and
mentors in the schools of this predominantly Hispanic neighborhood.
#Street Level Youth Media, where interns work with video professionals and high
school students who are creating community documentaries, oral histories and stories.
#Family Matters, where interns work with community organizing and school staff to
advance school reform agendas.
In all of these settings, future educators encounter both life as it actually lived by
young people and their families in real urban communities, and life as it might be if
schools and community organizations work together to address common issues. Almost
universally, the Northwestern students involved in these encounters acknowledge their
importance. Reactions emphasize a new-found understanding of , and respect for
community resources and the importance of family. Initial indications point toward a
group of future educators who will, we hope, be committed to learning about and from
the community which defines their school's context, and will work to engage school and
community assets and energies in new partnerships for a vital future.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION/PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
PERSPECTIVE
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In the traditional pre-service model, there have been two members – the
university and cooperating school that agrees to take a student and expose that individual
to a roughly nine week regimen of observation, planning, grading, and increasing
assumption of class responsibility. Often pre-service students have been objects, treated
like pawns in a chess game. Moved about the board with little choice of direction, they
model their cooperating teacher - teach their curriculum, assume their space. This model
has a voyeuristic quality to it. The student teacher as outsider, temporarily looking in.
Ten (sometimes 16) weeks. Hardly enough to know students or curriculum.
In the model that we envision, the pre-service students begins their association
with a school in their junior year and continues that relationship into their senior year
thus becoming more familiar with school culture, students, staff, customs and politics.
Seen frequently enough, the pre-service novice becomes familiar, knows individuals by
name and reputation, has a feel for the flow of the school in all of its particularities. They
depart in June and return in September much as any teacher or student in that school and
with all of the attached expectations and anxieties. Beginning with practicum and some
phased instruction, the regimen intensifies the following year with curriculum planning
and application. Because the student teacher, (I have never been fond of the term but for
lack of a better one), knows the school and his/her cooperating teacher, there is no need
for a "honeymoon". The relationship, begun months earlier, grows and however the
cooperating teacher chooses to share class, resources and plans for the forthcoming
period, their charge is already merged into the flow.
How is this vision related to community? In its ideal sense, a community is a
collective of individuals bound together with identifiable characteristics that they share
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on an ongoing basis. Teachers in any given school can identify the culture of that school,
understand the backgrounds of their students, have a common administration or system.
They may teach in a cross disciplinary manner thus blending materials and curriculum.
They share common hopes and desires for their students, feel pride for them when they
leave; feel happy to see them return during periodic visits. In a communal teaching
environment, members may know each other beyond the walls of the school. They
celebrate births, mourn deaths and participate in the primal events that give their lives
meaning. Thus, in a multitude of ways, they are friends as well as colleagues. They
harbor responsibilities, demonstrate support and develop obligations with each other.
When a pre-service teacher enters this kind of communal environment, they are
alien, excluded and denied the resources shared by members of the\teaching community.
The shorter the period of student teaching, the less likely the boundaries can be breached.
Therefore, if pre-service teachers begin their relationships with schools, first through a
community partnership in their sophomore year, then in their junior year via their
practicum and continues that connection into their senior year, the chances of becoming a
member of the teaching community increase. They are recognizable. Students and staff
know them, extend themselves to the prospective teacher, diminishing the notion of
transcience and creating warmth and acceptance.
How can the outside partner, such as Facing History and Ourselves, contribute to
the construction of community both for the pre-service individual and the university?
With the creation of Schooling in Communities, Northwestern made a commitment to
introduce pre-service students to education in a unique way. Rather than expose their
students to the "inners" of teaching - schools and classes, psychology and methods -
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Northwestern first created a class to examine the role of education beyond the classroom
door. Who provides education for students before, after and beyond? How are the
structures of community organizations related to the university? To the local classroom?
What support mechanisms are provided? How is education enlarged and reshaped in
neighborhoods? How is teacher training provided on an on-going basis "in the field"? By
using a traditional vehicle - the university class - to expose pre-service individuals to nontraditional educational organizations, Northwestern dared to change. By partnering
ourselves with Northwestern, organizations like Facing History and Ourselves dared to
enter the previously forbidden kingdom of teacher education.
“See everything, do everything”
From the moment of their arrival in early January to their departure in early
March, our goal was to expose our three Schooling in Communities guided interns to the
total spectrum of Facing History activity as if they were part of the program themselves.
Why? We envision that our interns are with us for the long term; that they will intern this
year, observe and student teach with Facing History teachers in the two years that follow
and, ultimately, monitor our work as teachers “in the field”. By investing our threesome
in the widest range of activity from the beginning, we hoped that they would appreciate
and understand what we do because they have seen it or done it themselves. Experience
is the best teacher.
Upon their arrival, Barry, Rachel and Elizabeth met our 8 member staff. They
shared their experiences with each other, got to know each other a bit in anticipation of
interviews to be conducted as part of the Northwestern course. But more important, our
interns discovered the intricacies of a not-for-profit. While our primary task is
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professional teacher training, we cannot operate without regular investment of financial
resources. Our development and technology team works endlessly to gather monies,
attract funders and write grants. Thus, our two person program staff has a financial
foundation for our workshops and institutes, the core of our work. In addition, our
interns watched a 1999 clip from the Today Show to explore the reactions of New York
students to their Facing History training. Passionate and articulate, these students
discussed Facing History’s core issues – racism and anti-semitism, identity and
community, memory and legacy, judgment and the role of history. The wisdom of the
young.
Then we got down to the business of Facing History – working with teachers.
Over the next eight weeks, our interns visited a wide range of Chicago-area schools.
Mike Lindberg, Professor of Geography at Elmhurst College, spoke of the success of his
month long J term Facing History course; Maura Stockmann, a teacher at Lindop School
in Broadview, invited us to present an hour Facing History overview to her staff as part
of an institute day; Jen Porst, a Northwestern graduate student and student teacher at
Whitney Young High School in Chicago, discussed her experiences and illuminated the
journey that will bring her a teaching position next year. Our interns helped review the
agenda and set up for our three day institutes in Oak Park and at the Harold Washington
Library in Chicago. They met with the staff of Changing Worlds, our partner in the
“Becoming American: New Immigration, Old Challenges” workshop at Hibbard School
on Chicago’s north side. And, as a tribute to their interest and dedication, Rachel, Barry
and Elizabeth attended “Becoming American” after their class ended in mid-March.
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By seeing teachers in their “natural habitat”, our interns observed the parameters
of Facing History’s approach to teacher development. They met practitioners and
discussed the nuances of teaching with all of its warts and triumphs. They felt the pulse
of our organization; understand the ebb and flow of the program and how it influenced
teachers to explore issues in depth and increased complexity. No longer distant, the life
of a teacher in the classroom became a reality to our interns as they approached the next
steps in their own training.
Facing History provided three young people with insight into the precious world
of teaching. Elizabeth, Rachel and Barry provided us with fresh eyes, helped us configure
our work anew. Teachers and teachers, students and students, teachers and students. We
taught each other. Learning in the finest sense.
Barry commented on his experience: As a pre-service education major, I simply
can't overstate how useful my time with Facing History has been. The organization through putting pre-servicers like myself in contact with full-time teachers – really gave
me a sense of what teaching is all about. The mounds of grading, the often chaotic days,
and all the great moments of understanding and connecting with students in teaching
both reaffirmed my enthusiasm for teaching and the challenges and responsibilities that
come with the territory.
I came away with a new view of "the teacher." By sitting in on workshops and
institutes and seeing teachers interact with one another and ask the kinds of questions
about curriculum that students would certainly ask, teachers became "de-idolized" for
me. I have always been reluctant to ask questions in class for fear of being labeled
stupid. Yet when I saw teachers asking these same questions I would be asking, I really
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felt on a more equal playing field with them. If pre service educators could actually see
what teachers do behind the scenes when they are "human" I think they would be less
likely to model teachers who they may view as just an authority in the classroom and are
more likely to model teachers that ask questions and work with students.
This - the importance of forming a close student-teacher relationship not by
pampering, but by forming high expectations for students while recognizing individual
needs and abilities - is the number one lesson I learned from Facing History. The very
nature of the Facing History curriculum ensures that when this happens, a tremendous
amount of respect can be created for students' experiences, backgrounds and ethnicities.
I never quite grasped how these factors of race and nationality can affect classroom
dynamics. Facing History has encouraged me to check the stereotypes and misnomers at
the door and REALLY value each child's input in the classroom.
I really began to see, as a result, students in a broader sense – as people outside
the classroom, in the communities and citizens of the world. My sense of responsibility
as a future teacher just skyrocketed, and I think this can only be a good thing.
Nuts and Bolts
In a 2000 report, the researchers from the Consortium on Chicago Schools Research
describe how external partners worked with schools during the Annenberg Challenge.
They noted that partners employed four strategies: they provided professional
development, they helped schools establish new structures, they provided materials to
assist instruction, and they helped teachers learn to work together. (Rothman,
2002/2003). Our interns are receiving experience with such organizations. Adding the
university component also adds a new challenge. We have gathered some initial data
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after four years regarding how universities can be the ‘third leg of the triangle’ with
schools and community organizations to further the goals of constructive teaching and
learning in and outside of schools.
We have found that community partners, who participate in the ways that the Consortium
research suggests, can also work well with university guided internships when:
1) They have an identified liaison/contact for university students
2) They can identify specific tasks, activities, events for university students
3) They have flexible scheduling that can accommodate university students’
schedules
4) They are curious about and interested in schools and schooling
5) They see university students as resources and, in some cases, role models
6) They treat university students as assets
7) They demand something from university students – a specific product or endresult from the internship
8) They can break the traditional mold of seeing university students as ‘student
teachers’
9) They allow university students to “ride along” and witness the real work of
the organization.
University students, in turn, partner well with community organizations when:
1) They have sufficient time to process their experiences with peers and mentors
2) They have specific tasks to accomplish and products to achieve
3) They see themselves as allies and guests
4) They acknowledge and articulate what they have to learn from communities
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5) They raise genuine questions that they have the opportunity to explore
through the internship
6) They are supported by university and site-based mentors
7) They are encouraged to problem solve on site.
8) They are provided with opportunities to make connections between their
internship experiences and pedagogical learning
9) They understand the mission of the organization and how it intersects with the
goals of enhancing student learning and school reform
10) They see and can articulate the connection between community internships
and classroom pedagogy.
Students’ Insights
From the data we have gathered thus far, pre-service candidates have reported the
following:

Teaching sometimes happens in community sites as it does in traditional k-12
classrooms. But it ‘looks different’, in that the role of teacher is fluid and
changes with the circumstance and the task. Teaching is also more listeningoriented out of the classroom. Students are seen as individuals with lives and
stories that are seldom acknowledged in the classroom. One student, Norma
Ramos writes: Although Street-Level is not a school, students have learned a
great deal about themselves and the world around them by having an
organization that listens to their voices. Simply put, SL is listening to the
needs of its young participants, something public schools should be doing. In
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order to be able to teach everyone and so help everyone, a teacher must
inquire about the students themselves.
Intern Emily Barker explains: …community organizations can offer the
services of some of the nation’s greatest teachers. Museums, cultural centers,
local businesses, and religious institutions are all treasure troves of educational
possibilities and skilled individuals who have plenty to share with young people.
Community organizations have a human resources advantage over local schools.
Rather than utilizing only teachers who have been trained and certified as such,
community organizations can tap the resources that it finds within the
neighborhood itself and discover the individual talents of community members.

Pre-service candidates also note that learning happens in these out-of-school
settings, even though the young people may not acknowledge that what they
are doing has anything to do with school. Learning also occurs on the part of
teachers who engage in community partnerships. Street-Level Youth Media
(described above), a neighborhood media organization open as a drop-in
center for young people, also has extended their services to classroom teachers
who wish to integrate media into their teaching. Our pre-service candidates
express the view that this should happen much more than it does. Partnership
organizations have much to teach schools, in other words.
Intern Emily Barker: By engaging in (such a) partnership, a school can create a
path for students to participate in real-life projects with the organization and see
things that one can not teach within the school walls.
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
Our pre-service candidates have observed that the playing field is much more
level in non-school teaching and learning settings than in traditional classrooms.
They have expressed the belief that community organizations could show schools
the way to address issues of equity. Interns persistently discuss their own
increased affinity and comfort with adolescents they meet in community settings
–another step toward breaking down the sense of ‘the other.’

School reform can be informed by access to networks of professional
development associations, neighborhood and parent associations, and community
organizations. Schools can change with support from partners. Norma Ramos: I
honestly never thought that surrounding communities are so important to a
school. Moreover, I never thought how important a strong relationship between a
school and community is needed if either one is to remain in good condition.
A school-community relationship not only entails that students will get necessary
life skills but also social networks that will translate to better opportunities for
their future.

The mission of a school and a potential partner community organization need to
have some connection or the partnership won’t work. For our Northwestern
undergraduates, the link between what the school is doing with young people and
what the community organization is doing is not always clear. Our students felt
that establishing common goals and visions is essential to a partnership being
mutually beneficial.

Building the view of inquiry – using an asset-based approach –contributes to
successful teaching. Students (prospective teachers) in the program expressed the
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knowledge that interviewing as a methodology provides insights and builds
relationships with people they worked with in the community organizations –
parents, young people, organization directors.
Northwestern undergraduates in our program express the belief that the university has a
definite role to play; they have felt that they have made a contribution to their internship
sites and they recognized the potential for even more involvement of university students
with their community partners. Further, they have informed us of how the experiences
they have had in the community have assisted them in thinking about what teaching is all
about – and what kinds of support and resources are available to them as they begin their
careers. Intern Justin Bell: Teaching is about constantly sharing information: both
passing it on and soaking it up. Education is something in which everyone has a stake.
The children who are educated by a community grow up to make the decisions that
continue to define that community. So it stands to reason that it is in the community’s
best interest to provide the best possible education to its future leaders. The way to do
this is to truly give children a community education.
Effective teaching is not about dollars and cents. It is about building strong
networks to support children and educate them in and outside the classroom. Teaching is
about listening to students in order to help them help themselves and it is about helping
them develop meaningful relationships with adults and peers. Teaching no longer means
one person talking at a group of students. Teaching today is about the community
coming together, sharing resources to educate children and build stronger communities.
Teacher Education/Community Organization/Professional Development Insights
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In order to rethink teacher preparation within the context of evolving roles and
new partnerships, it seems clear that we must blur identities and share the responsibility
for preparing teachers who are interested in careers in urban settings. Traditional fouryear programs are not enough. Building an awareness and a sense of commitment to
urban education suggests the need to equip prospective students with the tools to learn
about the communities in which they will take teaching positions – not just learning a
map of the building in which they will teach.
Knowing adolescents requires working with them beyond the traditional
classroom settings. After school programs, drop in centers, arts programs, technology
programs all allow prospective teachers to work side by side, one on one with young
people, thereby learning more about who they are as people and what makes this
community work.
Similarly, learning about teachers requires candidates to do meaningful work
along side experienced professionals outside the classroom. Professional development
partnerships that work with experienced teachers provide ideal opportunities to invite
interns to attend, participate, and learn from workshops, seminars, and meetings that
involve mixed constituencies.
Community organization sites need to be prepared to work with university
students in ways that do contribute to the interns’ education and are, simultaneously,
useful to the organization. Sets of experiences must be structured so that interns are
working directly with young people while being afforded opportunities to learn about the
mission, vision, and structure of the organization. Site coordinators are most successful
as mentors when they are in close contact with university teacher educators who can
32
brainstorm, problem solve, and support what the site is doing with university interns.
Community organization directors and leaders are not familiar with internships that are
focused on teachers and teacher preparation. Structures for familiarizing them with the
goals and the structures of such a program are essential.
University teacher education courses, if they are to include a community
partnership element, must have the resources to support not only the interns in the
program but also the sites and the site coordinators who are partners. We are discovering
that there are definite roles for graduate students, beginning teachers, and other resource
people who can serve as intermediaries, informal mentors, and even chauffeurs for
interns who are moving from the campus into the community on a regular basis.
Next steps
We are working to develop clearer assessment of the impact of early guided
internships in communities on teachers as they student teach and as they begin their
teaching careers. We anticipate following the groups of students who have had these
experiences as they move through the remainder of the teacher education program and
into their careers. The current group of seniors was the first to engage in community
internships when they were sophomores. We would like to develop means of assessing
what teacher candidates learn and can do in classrooms that can be attributed, at least in
part, to participation in a community partnership internship. We would like to explore
how the pedagogy that we find outside the classroom can inform how beginning teachers
participate in mentoring relationships, become acclimated to a new school community as
first year teachers, and access the resources they need to assist their students in learning.
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We anticipate a continued focus on internship design to truly integrate off-campus
and in-class experiences. There is much debate in teacher education today about the
value of traditional methods courses and student teaching/practicum experiences. The
increase in alternative certification programs that have truncated or even eliminated these
experiences for candidates challenges those of us who prepare teachers to examine the
nature of field work and its value (or lack thereof) for our prospective teachers. Guided
internships that do influence new teacher practice in a positive way need to be
documented.
Finally, we would like to explore more ways to bring schools and teachers into
the ‘triangle’ of partnerships involving higher education, communities, and schools. The
work that the teacher preparation students have done and have witnessed in communities
sadly sometimes bypasses initiatives occurring in teachers’ classrooms and schools.
Engaging partnerships with those of us in teacher education could make more
connections among all three constituencies more possible.
Intern Emily Barker offers this: Though much of a students’ most valuable
learning may take place when led by a figure other than a typical classroom teacher,
such teachers still remain the foundation of a child’s education. To achieve the level of
creativity, inspiration, and impact day in and day out that an occasional teacher from an
outside source may have, it is necessary for the classroom teacher to have a certain level
of support from within the school and the community. While out of school experiences
can never replace the traditional schooling methods, they are valuable to a students’
education in that they expose the students to new ideas from unlikely teachers.
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35
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