Difficult Transition from Student to Teacher

"It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, emotionally and mentally." These are not the words we generally associate with a university student who is undergoing teacher training, yet Concordia researcher Anita Sinner has heard similar statements from many such individuals. Every year thousands of students make the transition from student to teacher and the stories of those who struggle are often missing from our conversations.

"Pre-service teachers who experience varying degrees of struggle have few stories against which to compare their experiences when entering the teaching profession," Sinner explains. This magnifies a sense of dislocation in the very profession they seek to dedicate their working lives." By examining the challenges faced by one person transitioning from student to teacher, she hopes to "raise awareness about the stresses of the teaching occupation and works to establish, within teacher culture, alternative perspectives about the profession."

Writing in the peer-reviewed journal, Teachers and teaching: theories and practice, Sinner, a professor in Concordia University's Department of Art Education, offers what she calls a "critique from the inside." She focuses her study on Nathalie, a young woman at the practicum stage of her teacher education.

Nathalie is stimulated in her university classroom, where she is encouraged to "approach teacher education through inquiry, development of interdisciplinary perspectives, collaboration with students and teachers, and ongoing reflective writing and visual expression." Yet, she is stifled in her job-training, which continues to follow an apprenticeship model, where her authority and abilities are questioned- not by the Grade 8 kids to whom she's teaching art, but by the "sponsor-teacher," who is meant to be imparting wisdom, support and guidance.

"It was a very odd relationship," writes Nathalie. "At times I would think maybe she doesn't mind sharing her classroom with me, and then there would always be an incident that reminded me that I'm in her space. Even when she had the opportunity to help me, she wouldn't. It got to the point where she asked me, 'Haven't you ever taken a drawing class?' That was the tone of the practicum."

This disconnect between the university classroom and the grade-school teaching placement represents something of a paradox. "Students like Nathalie learn to be teachers while behaving as if they have already mastered the necessary skills and knowledge. This puts them in a difficult space, where they have a double identity as a student who is also a teacher. That can be very hard to navigate, because the roles subvert one another, which can leave student teachers questioning the ethics of their practicum experiences."

"The existing practices of teacher education leave some pre-service teachers vulnerable to exploitation. The scope of Nathalie's emotional experience raises critical concerns about the apprenticeship model and the value of field experience," Sinner goes on to explain. Indeed her research brings into question whether such job placements are the most productive means to prepare a new teacher for the classroom.

Ultimately, Sinner sees this research as the beginning of a larger study that can encompass more disciplines. "This doesn't just apply to student teachers struggling with practicum experiences. On-the-job training is part of degree requirements in fields including nursing, medicine, social work, law, architecture and engineering. By opening up the dialogue around practical training, we can help the next generation of teachers, lawyers, doctors, engineers and architects become better able to discuss their struggles as they train -- and, in so doing, improve that training experience."

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Preschoolers’ Counting Abilities Relate to Future Math Performance,

Along with reciting the days of the week and the alphabet, adults often practice reciting numbers with young children. Now, new research from the University of Missouri suggests reciting numbers is not enough to prepare children for math success in elementary school. The research indicates that counting, which requires assigning numerical values to objects in chronological order, is more important for helping preschoolers acquire math skills.

“Reciting means saying the numbers from memory in chronological order, whereas counting involves understanding that each item in the set is counted once and that the last number stated is the amount for the entire set,” said Louis Manfra, an assistant professor in MU’s Department of Human Development and Family Studies. “When children are just reciting, they’re basically repeating what seems like a memorized sentence. When they’re counting, they’re performing a more cognitive activity in which they’re associating a one-to-one correspondence with the object and the number to represent a quantity.”

Manfra analyzed data from more than 3,000 children from low-income households in order to determine if the children’s reciting and counting abilities in preschool affected their first-grade math scores. He found that students who could recite and count to 20 in preschool had the highest math scores in first grade; however, less than 10 percent of the children in the study could count and recite to 20.

“Counting gives children stronger foundations when they start school,” Manfra said. “The skills children have when they start kindergarten affect their trajectories through early elementary school; therefore, it’s important that children start with as many skills as possible.”

Previous research has shown that, in low-income families, parents often think children’s educations are the responsibility of teachers, while teachers expect parents to teach some essential skills at home, Manfra said.

“These low-income children aren’t learning math skills anywhere because parents think the children are learning them at school, and teachers think they’re learning them at home,” Manfra said. “This is a problem because it gives parents and teachers the idea that it’s not their responsibility to educate the children, when it’s everyone’s responsibility. This is problematic because, when the children enter kindergarten and are at lower math levels, they don’t have the foundational skills needed to set them on paths for future success.”

Parents and teachers should integrate counting into all aspects of children’s daily activities so they can master the skill, Manfra said.

“You can learn anything anywhere, and this is very true for counting,” Manfra said. “When adults read books with children, they can count the ducks on the page. They might count the leaves that fall to the ground outside or the number of carrots at lunchtime.”

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Child care providers can be part of the solution for childhood obesity

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys revealed that over 21% of children 2 to 5 years old were considered overweight or obese. Child care settings can serve as a platform to teach children about nutrition in our fight against childhood obesity, as nearly 50% of children in the United States under age 5 are enrolled in child care. In a new study released in the November/December 2012 issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, training child care providers about their role in children's healthful eating is an essential component of child care-based obesity prevention initiatives.

This study from Washington State University called the ENHANCE project, looked at 72 child care providers from 45 child care settings before and after a three-hour wellness retreat, and focused on feeding relationships, child nutrition education, and family communication. This forum provided tools and skills for providers to succeed in incorporating obesity prevention and healthful eating promotion within their child care setting. Based on observations and a survey before and one year after the wellness retreat, researchers found child care providers' beliefs related to children's healthful eating and feeding affected classroom practices. For example, if a child care provider felt confident in their ability to provide nutrition information, then they increased their nutrition education efforts and communicated more frequently with families about healthful eating and child feeding.

Jane D. Lanigan, PhD, the lead investigator from Washington State University, says, "Teachers did feel empowered to shape children's food preferences and employed a variety of evidence-based practices during feeding. However, they felt uncertain about managing children's intake or addressing child weight issues with parents. The current study suggests that the child care feeding environment can be improved by helping providers understand the negative consequences associated with feeding practices such as pressuring a child to eat, restricting highly palatable food, and using rewards to encourage children to eat healthful food or increase consumption."

So why is this important for childcare? Dr. Lanigan says, "The potential for early learning professionals to contribute to the childhood obesity solution has yet to be fully realized. The ENHANCE project sought to position obesity prevention within the early learning philosophy of promoting the development of the 'whole child' and help child care providers connect child care feeding practices to children's development of lasting beliefs about healthful eating."

"Incorporating child feeding training into state child care licensure, national certification, or as a requirement for participation in the Child & Adult Care Food Program are potential mechanisms for improving the child care feeding environment and addressing the childhood obesity epidemic."

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