After deciding to ditch their careers and take up teaching, some future educators recently found themselves in a DeKalb County elementary school cafeteria surrounded by energetic third, fourth and fifth graders.
The kids had plenty of advice for the teachers-in-training: Use jelly beans and pizza pies to explain math. Create games to make learning fun. Draw pictures to explain lessons and avoid lecturing.
The session with the elementary school students was designed to bring the teaching candidates up to speed on the skills they’ll need when they take over classrooms a little more than a year from now. They will be among the newest batch of educators who have found their way to the classroom a little later in life, in some cases after long careers in other fields.
The 27 would-be teachers are taking a teacher certification class at Georgia State University — yet another way the state is trying to meet demand for teachers. In addition, another 21 programs throughout the state that aren’t run by colleges or universities train teachers for certifications through the Georgia Teacher Alternative Preparation Program (GaTAPP).
Levonne Gigger, who decided food stamp and Medicaid eligibility in a previous job, enrolled in GSU's Urban Accelerated Certification and Master's program to pursue her dream of teaching.
“The best qualities of a teacher don’t necessarily have anything to do with teaching techniques. It can be as simple as being nice and understanding,” said Gigger, a mother of three, after talking with fifth-grader Anuka Gurung at International Community School, a charter school that caters to its many international students.
Georgia is one of the states leading the way in providing options for people to find a career in teaching, said Judy Corcillo, executive director for the National Association for Alternative Certification.
Georgia had the sixth-most students who completed alternative teacher preparation programs, with 794 finishers in the 2009-2010 school year, according to a U.S. Department of Education report published last month.
Nationwide, about 1 in 5 students who complete teacher preparation programs came through alternative programs, the report said. That compares with about 13 percent in the 2000-2001 school year.
“These types of programs meet the demands of people who want to get into teaching. As more and more people learn about alternative certification programs, more and more people take advantage of those options because they meet their needs so well,” said Judy Corcillo, executive director for the National Association for Alternative Certification.
Georgia State’s accelerated teaching program prepares students to work in urban schools that have a harder time attracting recent education majors from traditional colleges and universities. It aims to get teachers certified within a year, teaching shortly afterward and earning their master’s degree while working full-time the following year. Graduates are required to make a three-year commitment to working in a high-needs school.
By training teacher candidates in classroom environments, they’re more likely to understand the needs of urban students and take much-needed jobs in those schools, said Brian Williams, a teacher in the program and director of the university’s Alonzo A. Crim Center for Urban Educational Excellence.
“What happens with traditional education programs, because there isn’t a focus on urban education, those teachers tend to go to schools that aren’t in urban communities,” Williams said. “We wanted to prepare a program that would prepare people to go into schools where they’re most needed, but we also wanted them to be ready.”
Critics of nontraditional teacher certification programs say they rush the training process, leaving teachers unprepared when they go before students.
But Emily Feistritzer, president of the National Center for Alternative Certification, said alternatively trained teachers are just as effective as traditional teachers. She said various studies reach different conclusions, but there’s no broad-based research showing that alternatively certified teachers perform worse.
“The bottom line is that it’s increasingly difficult to tell the difference between an alternative route and traditional route for teacher certification,” Feistritzer said.
Unlike Georgia State’s class, most other nontraditional programs for people who want to switch careers don’t come with college credits, instead teaching skills needed to run a classroom and pass state certification assessments, said Phyllis Payne, director of nontraditional educator preparation for the Georgia Professional Standards Commission. Applicants must already have a bachelor’s degree, and the programs take between one and three years to complete.
Teachers coming from other careers may have knowledge of their subject area — like a chemist who wants to teach science — but they lack training about how to convey their knowledge to students, she said. GaTAPP provides extensive support and mentoring to its teacher candidates.
“They’re very successful. They come in at a more experienced age. They have life experiences, and they’re committed and passionate about the program,” Payne said.
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