Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 22:14:39 -0400

From: "Cleary, Michael" <michael.cleary@SRU.EDU>

Subject: Re: HEDIR-L Digest - 27 Jul 2006 to 28 Jul 2006 (#2006-158)

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Hi Valerie: I had time to thoroughly read your well-written concerns re: professional preparation and am posting some thoughts in response.

1. Your concerns re: which degree more thoroughly prepares a health educator or teacher(Under-Grad or masters -level) is right on the money. If a graduate degree is supposed to build upon prior (UG)academic knowledge, then we could all assume that, yes, the MS. MS-Ed, or MA meant greater skills than the BA, BS, etc. As you probably already know, however, many masters level public health folks may not have the same skills as an undergraduate who completed a "typical" BS program in community health education and subsequently had to take epi, data mgt, stats, biostats, program planning & eval., env. health, health behavior theory, internship, etc. to be employable as well as CHES-eligible. My department used to offer an MS in Health Science which was quite popular with area teachers, nurses, and social services professionals. There was no way, however, that these eventual MS recipients were better prepared (or as prepared) in health promotion than the BS community health program undergrads; the MS holders simply did not have the same health ed.-related content or process courses. To be fair, in an effort to "balance out" some of these discrepencies, some HEd depts will also require certain UG coursework to be completed before full admission to the masters program; but I do not see that consistently carried out.

2. When describing the preparation of school teachers from an accredited school of education, I get the sense that you (and I'm sure many others) believe teachers are not as well-grounded in their respective academic disciplines (partially on the grounds that they receive a BA vs a BS) compared to those who have graduated with a more "professional" degree such as a BS in engineering. At SRU-type universities, the majority of college of ed. graduates receive a BS-Ed degree with certification. BA degrees tend to be conferred more upon graduates of "Arts & Sciences" colleges and often have foreign language requirements. The typical BS-Ed trained secondary school (grades 6-12) teacher normally completes the same academic coursework as his/her BA counterpart in the "pure" sciences. In other words the math teacher takes the same math courses as the math major. The Nation At Risk Report in the 1980s got the public & some policy makers to think (albeit wrongly) that most teachers were not as prepared for their specialty area when in fact, in depth transcript analyses support their content mastery not just in terms of credit hours in the certification area, but also the number of upper-division courses. Graduation grade-points of teacher ed. graduates average 2.9; the same GPA average as non-education college graduates. You are correct that secondary education majors also complete education course requirements and this often bumps their program up several credit hours. Fortunately, several education courses (child psych, human dev.) often count toward a university's general education requirement so the credit hour-total is somewhat less daunting. Unfortunately, the "myth of the missing major" belief dies hard.

If on the other hand, one examines elementary schools teachers, then yes, one can state that they do not normally complete a so-called academic major. Their major is elementary education. There is no evidence, however, that mandating an elementary ed.candidate to major in an academic area (like mathematics) will make them a better K-5 math teacher. Also, surveys of building principals indicate the biggest reason K-12 teachers do not receive tenure is usually not a lack of content knowledge but the inability to manage a classroom as well as get a lesson "off the ground". These are more pedagogy/methods types of concerns and, accordingly, teachers tend to rate these courses (including field work and student teaching) as the most valuable in their prof. preparation.

Sorry Valerie, I guess I did get into that "aspect of the debate right now"... :)

3. Regarding the "re-tooling / refinement" of HEd programs to allow more career options, I think this idea has merit. As you suggested, additional ed. courses such as student teaching (I would also add methods coures, and field experience) could allow an UG public health /community health education graduate the option of going into the schools. Offering school health teacher certification at the post-bac level (thus only having to require certification courses) could also somewhat "fast-track" a public health UnderGrad into the classroom. The only drawback I have seen is that most school principals tend to hire the dual-certified physical education/health education program graduate because they are more employable and because they are willing/expected to coach. Single-certification health teachers, just like any single-cert. teacher, tend to be passed over unless they can show they are working on an additional certification such as science or driver education. Some years ago, three of my community health CHES-eligible program graduates, did in fact, eventually, secure school health-only certification as post-bac students. I taught their methods courses and supervised their student teaching. While content knowledge did not seem to be a major issue for any of them, one of the students had more than his share of problems with simply functioning in a classroom environment where the ability to size things up fast & make quick mid-lesson modifications in a roomful of thirty 9th graders pays dividends. To make matters worse, this student teacher was averse to constructive feedback from the cooperating teacher who was excellent. These experiences (and others) have led me to believe, that some folks are simply not cut out to be classroom teachers, regardless of their academic background. Dispositions seem to be equally important. I would venture to guess that not all certified SH teachers, even with additional public health training, will be successful in a large city, county, or state health departments. Aga!

in, indi

v

idual mindsets, personalities, & dispositions may trump coursework.

As your thoughtful post indicated, quality assurance is still a huge issue in UG and graduate programs in school health and public health.

I'm glad you have brought these issues up and hope my observations were useful.

Michael

-----Original Message-----

From: HEDIR-L List on behalf of Valerie Scotella

Sent: Mon 7/31/2006 4:15 PM

To: HEDIR-L@LISTSERV.SIU.EDU

Cc:

Subject: Re: HEDIR-L Digest - 27 Jul 2006 to 28 Jul 2006 (#2006-158)

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