Q & A with Dean Holly Stadler
College of Education

In a recent issue of the Roosevelt review, Dean Holly Stadler discussed current issues in PK-12 education and challenges facing teachers in the 21st century.

What personal qualities must new teachers have to be successful? I think they need to have an altruistic orientation. They must place the needs of their students above their own. They need to be patient; they need to be caring; and they need to be intelligent and persistent. Of course, they need to be proficient
in their subject area or grade level and have the pedagogical skills to make the classroom an inviting learning place for their students. New teachers must know that they can reach out for help to their former professors and colleagues. We all want them to succeed.

What are the major challenges faced by new teachers in the classroom? As a counselor educator, it has been my observation that new teachers need to be better prepared for the emotional toll in the teaching profession. Say you’re 22 years old and you come all excited into a classroom for the first time. After a month or two, you hear a student say, “I hate my teacher.” Or perhaps you can’t get certain students to pay attention. Those kinds of interactions can take an emotional toll. I also think we should better prepare new teachers for the interactions they’ll have with other teachers, parents and principals.

Can you elaborate on the emotional aspects of teaching? Teaching is about change, and teachers are important agents of change in students’ lives. It can get discouraging when it feels like you are not being as successful as you’d like to be. It can feel as though your reputation as a person is on the line on a daily basis. All of us who work in human development professions need to learn to manage the highs and lows that make this work so challenging as well as rewarding.

Are classrooms more diverse now than they were 10 or 15 years ago? I think that people have been lulled into thinking that there wasn’t diversity because every student kind of looked thesame or came from the same community. All individuals are different, whether they live in a rich community or a poor community. They come with their own challenges plus their own abilities and
opportunities for excellence.

How do you prepare students to manage a classroom with 25 kids? Roosevelt’s faculty has developed degree programs that take students step by step through increasingly complex tasks that are expected of competent educators. One of those tasks is the ability to create a physically and psychologically safe learning environment in the classroom. We have a number of methods classes where students receive personal attention. In addition, through field experiences students learn about the vast diversities in the classroom, so they’re not surprised when they arrive to do their student teaching. We start with low-intensity field experiences and then teach students methods that are appropriate to the grade level and the content that they’re teaching. We do this for all of our programs, including our master’s program in counseling, our leadership master’s program and our doctoral program.

Is technology making teaching and learning easier or more difficult? I think the jury is still out on technology, but we must pay attention to it because it’s not going away. Technology has brought both new challenges into the learning environment and also opened up some wonderful new ways to reach students who otherwise might not be drawn to learning. I think it is especially beneficial for
learners who are visual and who conceptualize things by watching something happen. For example, through technology you can see a spider weaving a web, as opposed to a picture of a spider web. I think for some children, it captures their intellect in a different way.

Do you think the school day should be lengthened? Children and young adults already are in school for a pretty long period of time. As a result, much of the preparation and grading by teachers takes place after the eight hour workday. There’s very little time available for teachers to get together with others in their content areas or with their principals or counselors. If we were to lengthen the day for students, there would surely need to be a rethinking of how the day is spent.

What do you think about parents who hover over their
children like helicopters? We’re seeing much more of that, and we’re seeing parents who ask a lot of questions. This is not just in education, however. People have access to the Internet and they are now questioning doctors, lawyers and other professionals. It’s a sign of the times. That said, you don’t do a child or a parent any favors by glossing over things that are difficult to talk about. We must do a better job advising new teachers on how to be honest but also motivating as well.

Are there sufficient numbers of students to teach math and science? As I talk to my colleagues around the country, we find that we don’t have as many college students interested in secondary education, especially in the areas of science and math. Our early childhood and elementary school teachers learn about science and math and they teach it, but when you get to things like algebra and calculus or botany and biology, we just don’t have enough students
in those areas to fill the demand. Students with those kinds of skills can obviously get jobs in a variety of fields.

How is the economy affecting schools? Over the past several years in education, we’ve seen the demise of physical education classes, art classes, school nurses and well-staffed counseling offices. When you take away counselors and make them do scheduling, for example, you are asking for trouble. I think that we also are seeing an unfortunate de-professionalization of teaching in some arenas. In the quest to fill the need for teachers in certain subject areas, career
changers have been encouraged to pursue new careers in education. I believe, as do many other educators, that some programs are not robust and allow unprepared teachers into the classroom too soon. On the other hand, I do think well-prepared career changers have much to offer our schools.

What major changes have you observed in the field of education? One of the major changes I’ve seen is an increased emphasis on accountability. By that I mean holding schools as well as universities accountable for the skills and abilities of the students with whom they come in contact. Educators have long had ideas
about what outcomes they want to generate in classrooms. Thanks to an emphasis on accountability, important discussions are taking place across the country to clarify the outcomes we hope to achieve in education at all levels.

What do you think about the No Child Left Behind Act? The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 included accountability for results, more choices for parents, greater local control and flexibility, and an emphasis on doing what works based on scientific research. Each of these areas sparked much controversy because mandates for large-scale change were unfunded. That’s obviously a huge problem. The emphasis on qualifications of teachers has been helpful in removing teachers from the classroom who were not certified to teach the subject areas in which they were assigned.

How is Roosevelt addressing the needs of students who want to become educators? In the College of Education, our goal is to train future teachers to understand the entire developmental process of how youngsters learn. We want our graduates to know how to work with principals, counselors, reading specialists, parents and teachers of other grades. By practicing these types of professional interchanges before they’re hired, hopefully our students won’t drop out of teaching as so many new teachers do.

College of Education