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teacherRecently, the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) announced a redesign of all education programs within its six universities and 13 community colleges called "Ready2Teach." The TBR is initiating change in the process of preparing new teachers for public school classrooms. Although as a private college, Maryville College is not governed by the TBR, our goal in the teacher education program is to equip our teacher licensure students with research-based knowledge and skills that will facilitate the learning for all children.

My concern about the June 13 Associated Press story about Ready2Teach that ran in the News Sentinel, and across the state, was the inaccuracies about how we currently prepare new public school teachers. Here are a few misconceptions: n Education majors spend most of their time in college listening to lectures about teaching methods or education theory. Tennessee colleges and universities have not offered an "education major" since 1992. New teachers must have a major in their initial teaching field, meet general education requirements and take few professional development (education) courses. A student at Maryville College

studying to become a high school math teacher takes 13 math courses, two physics courses and only four education courses prior to student teaching. n Teacher licensure students are only in the classroom the last half of their senior year. This is not true at any college or university in Tennessee. At Maryville College, our teacher licensure students are in public school classrooms beginning in the sophomore year. Responsibilities increase during the junior year. In the first semester of the senior year, teacher licensure students are in public school classrooms weekly, preparing for the transition to the second semester, when they teach every day, all day.

teacher