News: Interview
New Teachers and Social Justice

Noted educator and writer Herbert Kohl has created a teacher prep program that harnesses the energy of young teachers who want to do good in the world.

Herbert Kohl may be best known for his progressive work in education and his insightful writing--including The Discipline of Hope and 36 Children. Now, he's running a new teacher preparation program at the University of San Francisco's School of Education. The Center for Teaching Excellence and Social Justice, which welcomed its first class of students last fall, is helping inner-city teachers obtain their teaching credentials and their master's degrees. NEA Today writer Dina S. Gómez spoke recently with Kohl about the Center.

What's the mission of the Center for Teacher Excellence and Social Justice?
I wanted to establish an advanced teacher training program that would attract excited young people into the teaching profession, young people who have a social vision and care deeply about children.

Our mission is to produce progressive, reform-minded teachers who will be empowered to help schools and urban centers throughout the nation. My ultimate goal is to create a learning community of future education leaders, teachers who won't be afraid to be both educational and political leaders.

Why the focus on young teachers?
If we cannot sustain young, passionate teachers, then education will surely become mechanical.

Throughout my career, I have observed many young teachers who leave the field after just a couple years because they lose that original inspiration. I wanted to capture the enormous amount of energy and intelligence that exists among so many new teachers, and give them a place to discuss current issues in an environment where they learn to teach well.

Through seminars, class observations, and hands-on work in urban communities and reform-minded schools, we want to show these teachers that they are the creative center in the educational process, that they should have an enormous say in how education develops at their school and in this country.

What type of teachers have made up your first class of students?
I personally recruited and interviewed all 30 students, and every one is ideal for this program. They've all taught at least one year in poor communities. I knew that if they had at least one year of experience in the field, they would ask the right questions when they got into the program.

They are passionate about children and aren't afraid to deal with issues of social justice. In fact, they welcome and invite the opportunities to heal and enhance the communities where they work. Many of them are consistently motivated by social inequities.

How does the Center's program differ from teacher prep programs?
Like other programs out there, we focus on issues that specifically have to do with being a good teacher. We don't forget that teaching is a learned art. What makes us different is that we combine those lessons with a focus on social justice issues.

For example, we teach about being aware of the role race plays in our schools. We prepare our students to teach in a social context where they will encounter many different forms of racism, including other teachers who say, 'Don't expect too much from these kids,' or 'Don't push them too hard because they can't afford to go to college.'

It's what I call the discipline of hope: the refusal to accept limits on what students can learn or on what teachers can do to facilitate learning.

We also explore gender issues, and homophobia in schools. I don't think you get that in a regular education program.

How do you see the Center affecting public education in this country?
The Center has aligned itself with various organizations and people who want to keep progressive, hopeful, and socially responsible ideas alive in our schools. The students are constantly being exposed to progressive educators and policymakers, as well as community groups and organizations that are working to improve schools.

It's my hope that they spread what they are learning to affect change in our schools. I would also hope that as passionate professionals, they won't allow the degradation of public education to become a clich? in the media or allow reform ideas to escape action by becoming simple buzzwords.

How's the program's first year gone so far?
I'm proud that we are finding success in integrating the academic work with the teaching practice, which doesn't always come easily.

In a philosophy of education class I teach, for example, students wrote the usual papers and read philosophy books. But for their final project, I asked them to be fully dimensional. One young woman's project will inspire me for many years to come. She asked her young students to write poetry, and then she turned those poems into a quilt, which is now hanging in our office.

By focusing on good practice and driving home sustained commitment, I have no doubt that we will have a lasting impact on this new generation of teachers.

What advice would you offer new teachers?
If I were to tell new teachers anything, it would be to function on the basis of hope rather than on optimism. Optimism is a conviction that things will work out for the best. Hope is a deep faith that the struggle for things to work out well might eventually succeed.

Optimism will almost certainly fail, but hope never dies.

Resources

• For more about the Center for Teaching Excellence and Social Justice, visit www.soe.usfca.edu/ctesj/.

• The Discipline of Hope by Herbert Kohl (New Press, www.thenewpress.com), $16.95.

• Rethinking Schools publications, www.rethinkngschools.org/.

• The Unfinished Journey: Restructuring Schools in a Diverse Society by Laurie Olsen (California Tomorrow, www.californiatomorrow.org), $9.95.