Temple University - Templar Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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and a Possible Solution by Karen Edelman and Karen Weiner E.P.I.C.T. What is it? It may just l e a conglomeration of letters to you, but to two hundred elementary education majors and hundreds of elementary school pupils, it’s a new learning experience. It stands for the Elementary Program for Inner City Teaching. This program enables a student to learn to teach elementary school by experience rather than book-learning. While the ordinary' elementary education majors arc writing lesson plans for their teachers to read, the E.P.I.C.T. students are writing lesson plans to be used the next day. Every Tuesday and Thursday Temple juniors and seniors “eagerly pounce on Temple area kiddies. These future teachers and the innocent children of the neighborhood profit from a two-way learning experience. E.P.I.C.T. students take their method courses (the courses that are supposed to teach them how to teach) at the public schools. They meet once a week for three hours. Classes usually consist of two hours of discussion-lectures which are small and informal. The remaining hour is used to experience teaching first hand. Two students are assigned to a classroom. Some Temple instructors designate how many children each E.P.I.C.T. student should teach. Others allow their students to choose from team teaching, tutoring, small group work, full class teaching, or a combination of these. Occasionally the cooperating public school teacher works with his own group of students, observes the E.P.I.C.T. students’ attempts at teaching, or uses the hour as free time. While the traditional elementary education students come to class prepared for an hour of lecture or discussion, the E.P.I.C.T. students never know wnat unique experiences are in store for them. Here are some experiences that these future teachers had. One rainy morning two over-anxious E.P.I.C.T. students jumped off the bus at the sight of a school. They knew the ride was short; so as soon as they saw a school, they departed. Since this was their first day at school they didn't realize that there were three schools within three blocks. They didn’t lx»ther to look at the name over the door. After waiting fifteen minutes for the school secretary to return to tell them where they should go. they realized that their classmates should have arrived already. Suspiciously, they looked around the office for an indication of what school they were in. When they finally arrived at the right school (a converted factory) they found that the freight elevator had been condemned. They were informed that they had to climb six flights of stairs. When they finally found their classroom, they discovered that their assignment for next week consisted of writing a lesson on pendulums for a fourth grade class. All the way home they tried to think of what, if anything, they knew about pendulums and how they could make it sound exciting. The next week, armed with pendulums made out of rulers, washers and kite string, they entered their classroom onlv to be informed that their cooperating public school teacher was absent. Upon seeing our heroines, the substitute teacher fled, leaving the room in turmoil. The E.P.I.C.T. girls quickly discovered that the way to handle the class was for one to try to teach while the other tried to keep the children in their seats. The lesson, which took five hours to plan, took only fifteen minutes to teach. Somehow they had to make it last an hour. In a nearby classroom, another E.P.I.C.T. duo were trying to convince the frantic teachers running into their room that the smoke pouring into the hall was only caused by overcooked popcorn. Many of their lessons were far from perfect, but they learned from these experiences much more than a teacher or book could teach them. In spite of their lack of experience and knowledge, many lessons turned into rewarding experiences where the children were able to relate to the future teachers. What is more satisfying than having a shy child express herself for the first time in your group or a ten-vear-old bov invite you to his birthday party? The students in E.P.I.C.T. feel that it is one of the best methods to leam the “art of teaching.’ But are am of them really ready for a class of their own?

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The Problem by Arlynn Rubenstein Grobman My first chance to really teach a group of kids entirely on my own. I was a guest teacher, “sub , for a class of 30 third graders. I got to the school at ten o’clock and went to my room. One of the school’s unoccupied teachers was in the room instructing a reading lesson with a small group, the others were working beautifully and independently at their seats. I was introduced to the class, ana the teacher left. Immediately, utter chaos erupted in the room. Kids were talking, walking, fighting continuously, disrupting others in the class and me. My lesson not only flopped; it never got started. I reprimanded one boy and he picked himself up and left the room. He wandered up and down the hallway and I couldn't coax him into the room. I called the office. 'Someone will lx up as soon as they are free. Twenty minutes later, eternity to me. a counselor came upstairs. The child calmly walked back into the room and order was restored. Tne counselor left. Chaos erupted again. Is this tTie way it's sup| oscd to be? What happened to my classroom management procedures? The chaos in the room was absolutely frightening, frustrating, confusing. horrible. By twelve o’clock I was exhausted, confused and in tears. I left the school! I kept thinking about my years in school and my training. Was I prepared to meet kids face-to-face on my own? I didn't know what to do at the time I was confronted with the problem, and what’s worse 1 couldn't recall being taught methods to deal with problems in the classroom. I obviously wasn't prepared and I didn't know what to do. l atrr, in my senior year, during Student Teaching I learned what to do to gain control and respect. This wasn't learned in a lecture situation on campus but in a classroom observing a teacher work with a group of kids. I know now that my attitude had a lot to do with the kids’ reaction to me. I was scared and they knew it! The College of Education attempts to prepare students for a career in teaching. Upon graduation you are considered a professional, are given a classroom of 20 to 35 impressionable individuals and are expected to perform in a job about which you actually know nothing. When the sophomore year at the University is completed students are asked to choose a major field. At this point, education majors are swamped with a barrage of meaningless courses. Teaching social studies or science to a group of seven, eight or nine-year-olds is hardly learned in a classroom on campus in a lecture situation. Subject matter for such content areas can be easily learned from teachers' guides or from teachers in the field. Courses of this nature teach us nothing about the individual. Thirteen weeks need not be wasted writing units or experiments. Students in education get only one true exposure to the school system. Student teaching in the senior year is an excellent and realistic experience for someone planning to go into this profession. Many students find themselves in contact with children for the first time, and it can be frightening and awesome. Having to prepare lessons, meeting the children and teaching various groups at different levels of instruction is vital preparation for a teacher. Why can’t this be done at an earlier stage in the teacher s education? Education majors should be given continuous opportunity to deal with children and to instruct them. Teaching methods are fine on campus but learning how to apply them and how to deal with the individual child can only be done in a classroom situation where children as well as teachers can be observed. u

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Home Sweet Home by Marianne Caltabiana Black doors. Cork lined mlnature rooms. No windows. Pressor 11 all. The ringing of piano keys. The plucking of a stringed instrument. Brass, woodwind and percussion reverberate. Do. re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do. The College of Music. Take a building called Presser Hall, add faculty, students and instruments, and an immediate metamorphosis occurs, changing the mazelike building into a home—a home for the College of Music. It is rather unusual to refer to a university building as a home, but the homey quality of the College of Music is a strange and subtle phenomenon, evident only to music students. As a freshman, I did not immediately experience the warmth which the College of Music possesses. I was petrified. Students walked from class to class singing tunes from operas, passages from symphonies and the like. It seemed like a farce; a school for egotistical hams. Even though I enjoyed and loved music. I saw no reason to be so eccentric about it. Music was all the students seemed to live for and talk about. They seemed to be narrow-minded and shallow. Gradually, during my freshman year, I began to appreciate and understand the music students. They were involved in events outside of the College of Music. Some had diversified interests and were very active in the university. What had seemed before to be a clique, now appeared to be a bond, a unifying interest. This was made apparent through the actions of the faculty, through choral activities, and through my peers. It was a contagious spirit, which entailed only one prerequisite: a love for music. Their dedication to music does unite the music students. We all are in competition with one another, but no matter who comes out first, whoever gets that one particular solo, there exists a respect for one another as musicians. The students at the College of Music all have the same basic ideal—to present music as a beautiful and enjoyable aesthetic experience. The fulfillment of this ideal was the climax of my involvement with the College of Music. After personally enjoying all the l enefits of my home in Presser Hall, after combating my failures and feeling the exuberant happiness from my slightest musical success, I could bring this excitement to others. My first teaching experience was such an event. Just a small scale project-teaching music two hours a week at the William Dick School. Here I felt the power of music. I communicated with first graders in such a way that they clapped, danced, sang, smiled and said 'Thank you . I felt the spirit that I Teamed at the College of Music and shared it with the children. J6