Routledge Taking Teaching Seriously: How Liberal Arts Colleges Prepare Teachers to Meet Today's Educational Challenges in Schools

"This highly readable book contains important lessons for us all." -Katherine Schultz, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania Taking Teaching Seriously expands and enriches discussions about teacher preparation in the United States. Its authors describe the unique contexts for teacher preparation offered by liberal arts institutions and analyze the effects of these programs on their graduates and on K-12 schools. They emphasize that the goals and conditions for teacher preparation differ from larger public institutions in several key respects including supervisor-student teacher relationships, philosophical foundations, and approaches to clinical fieldwork. Taken together, the essays provide compelling evidence that educational studies programs in liberal arts colleges and universities constitute a vital component of the teacher education system in the United States. Contributors: Irving Epstein, Alice Lesnick, Alison Cook-Sather, Lisa Smulyan, Vicki Kubler LaBoskey, Linda R. Kroll, Christopher Roellke, Jennifer Rice, Susan Riemer Sacks, Charlotte Mendoza About the Author Christopher Bjork, an Assistant Professor of Education at Vassar College, is author of Indonesian Education: Teachers, Schools, and Central Bureaucracy (Routledge 2004). D. Kay Johnston, Professor of Education Studies and Women's Studies at Colgate University, is author most recently of Educating for a Caring Society: Classroom Relationships and Moral Action (Teachers College Press 2006). Heidi Ross, Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and Director of the East Asian Studies Center at Indiana University, is the author most recently of China Learns English (Yale University Press 1993). Christopher Bjork, Assistant Professor of Education at Vassar College, is author of Indonesian Education: Teachers, Schools, and Central Bureaucracy (Routledge 2004).