Originally prepared to support Saint Paul Public Schools and Minneapolis Public Schools equity teams:

• Ensure basic needs are met first: 
  As has been true for generations under anti-blackness, racial capitalism, and heteropatriarchy, we are now in an even more intensified state of threatened basic needs than we have since the beginning of distance learning and shelter-in-place. Doing the most for our kids right now means supporting the absolute basics (food, shelter, sleep, clothing) first. Asking more from them, even those whose material needs appear to be met, is likely to be simply beyond capacity this week.
• Helping students process:
   I encourage teachers to mindfully offer various kinds of space for students, with no demand to participate in any particular way or at all. For example, some will be looking for space to process what they’re experiencing and observing in our communities. Others will be repelled by this idea–they may be emotionally and physically exhausted and/or they may not trust their school community enough to engage. Both are appropriate responses. For younger students, many teachers are looking for children’s literature to share that might support their students’ processing. You certainly might find and choose a great text to work with on these last days of school, but most important now is to hold your students and their families in beloved community. Again, support basic needs first. If we’ve been providing radical love all year, our students already know it and feel it. Where we have our own work to do to build that practice, now is not the time to begin anew. Over the summer and ongoing, invest in building curriculum and pedagogies that will help you grow and live toward your commitments. These final days are for tending community.
• Recognizing individual circumstances as relative: 
  We are all living through conditions we may have found unimaginable months and even one week ago. And still, as always, the impact of this moment differs for each of us according to our social positioning: COVID-19 pandemic, the generational traumas of racism, and the uncertainty of the uprisings after George Floyd’s murder feel different in the bodies and lives of Black people and everyone who isn’t Black. They feel different in the bodies and lives of Indigenous people and other people of color and white people, as well. White educators (myself included) must take the demand to step back and step up with care seriously. If you are a white educator with questions or concerns about what this means in your work, please reach out to me or to another white accomplice in anti-racism.

In solidarity,

Annie Mason, Ph.D (she/her/hers), mason@umn.edu
Program Director of Elementary Teacher Education
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Minnesota

By Lecturer Cynthia Zwicky in elementary education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.

We are filling our feeds with ideas for online learning options and ways for parents to support their children at home during this shutdown. What we are not elevating is how to support the children for whom online learning and unscheduled time at home is a challenge.

This is the time when *maybe* people will realize what a teacher’s job truly is. It’s a teacher who works to understand each child as an individual and structures his/her classroom to support those needs. As a parent, I can admit that I don’t always know what’s best for my child’s learning. I am ever grateful to her teachers who knew.

For every child who will be writing her daily schedule and filling her time with pursuits of curiosity and adventure there will be many more children who will be stuck. Those are the children who relied on a one-on-one check in with their teacher /associate educator /support staff/ bus driver. And this is the hidden curriculum, the invisible job description of everyone who works at a school: to see these children. To know and understand these children. And to teach these children….By any means necessary.

Learn more about the teacher training programs in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.

Lecturer in Elementary teacher education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Cynthia Zwicky, PhD, offers helpful guidelines for parents to successfully educate their kids at home.

Predictable schedules help a classroom or household run smoothly

One thing that teachers know is necessary to keep their classroom functioning is the importance of a regular schedule and routine. Most of the challenges I experience as a parent, and I imagine you do as well, is with the child(ren) getting into mischief or asking, “What are we going to do?” Both of these stem from the same problem: an absence of a routine.

Children are very adaptable and children can also quickly become accustomed to a routine and to a certain predictability. Because of school, they are acclimated to the Monday through Friday routine and predictability of the school day. Now that schools are closed, there is a decided disruption to this routine. As a parent you may start with building a regular schedule that has predictability.

How to structure a schedule for learning

Each age group will need a different type of structure versus free time. For the youngest, more structure is important. For kindergarten through grade three, begin by creating a schedule that can be followed each day starting with breakfast and followed by a routine of activities. This could be anything, but the value is in its predictability; the child(ren) should know what’s coming next. The schedule can be structured or unstructured as best suits your individual child’s learning style. The activities could be written in with times assigned to them or could simply be a checklist to complete before a set time. Some children will love to know what time things will begin and end, while others will appreciate having a little agency in terms of when they complete the tasks.

Sample schedule:

•  BreakfastClear table/ put dishes in sink (wash dishes)
• morning meeting
• craft project
• free choice
• Worksheets
• Writing practice
• lunch
• quiet time
• Backyard/outdoor time
• Puzzles or games
• Read aloud or reading time
• TV or screen time
  *Be sure to build in alone time and solitude as well

Adapting the routine to your household

Older children can support the younger ones by being a teacher, i.e; doing a read aloud for the siblings or writing the activities for the day. Again, make this predictable. For instance, the caregiver(s) may write the list the first four days of the week and the children create Friday’s schedule.

Just as many of us who are asked to work from home are having to adjust to a new routine, so too are the children. Be patient with your household as you get used to a new normal. It takes time to learn how to be together for an extended length of time. 

Find out more about our elementary education programs in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.

C&I Professor of Elementary Education and Department Chair, Mark Vagle, made a statement to the Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) on November 8 about a proposed rule that would make it difficult for current and future teacher educators to teach pre-service teachers. Please share this statement widely and find out how to submit feedback to PELSB below. Your voice matters!

PELSB Board Chair and Members, Executive Director Alex Liuzzi and Rule Making Specialist Michelle Hersh Vaught,

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today regarding R 4576 Subpart 5: Standards for Teacher Educators, with a particular focus on Standards 22 & 24.

My name is Mark Vagle—and I am the Chair of the Department of Curriculum & Instruction and a Professor of Elementary Education at the University of Minnesota.

I spent most of my childhood in Northwestern Minnesota. Although I grew up working class in the most impoverished county in the state, I have always had my privileged whiteness, my privileged maleness, my privileged heterosexuality, my privileged able-bodiedness, and my privileged English as my first language. I now also have my privileged upper middle classness.

Under current and proposed rule for Standards for Teacher Educators, I am and would be qualified to teach elementary methods given my six years teaching and advanced degrees. However, a number of my colleagues, all of whom are currently qualified, would not—especially some of my colleagues of color. (I will send documentation to this end following this meeting).

As has been widely publicized (even on billboards) our racial achievement gap is the worst, or way too close to the worst, in the country.

And as Chair of a department that is committed to promoting social justice and dismantling racial, socioeconomic, gender and language injustices in education, I do not want recruit and retain more of me. We have enough of me. I want to recruit and retain more teacher educators of color.

I want to recruit and retain teacher educators such as Bettina Love, author of this book, We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom.

In fact, I hope you will be able to come to her public talk about this book next Wednesday evening at 7:00 at the Graduate Hotel at the U of M. [This event has passed]. You will hear a strong, smart, insightful, queer black woman help us see that it is not enough for folks like me to be allies—we must be co-conspirators in dismantling all the –isms.

I want way more Bettina Love’s teaching future teachers. However, Bettina Love would most likely not qualify to teach elementary methods under the proposed Standard 24—but she would be the exemplar, the gold standard for Standard 22, which as you know focuses specifically on recruiting and retaining teacher educators with diverse backgrounds and experiences including racially and ethnically diverse teacher educators.

I LOVE THIS STANDARD. DON’T CHANGE STANDARD 22

Standard 24. Well, I am concerned that although not its intent, the effect of increasing the teacher of record experience from 1 to 3 years will make Standard 22 very difficult, if not impossible, for us.

And Standard 22 is what is going to help us no longer be at the very bottom of the racial achievement gap—not Standard 24.

We need more teacher educators of color, which will help us recruit and retain more teacher candidates of color, which will put more teachers of color in classrooms. This is good for ALL students, and especially our students of color.

At a recent event, one of our Black female teacher candidates, A’nia-Nicole Rae, shared that one of our Department’s black female professors was the first black teacher she ever had in all of her schooling—kindergarten through her bachelor’s degree.

She said she wept as she left class after the first session.

This is unacceptable.

This cannot continue to be the case in this great State.

Please. Please revise Standard 24 to allow much more flexibility and spaciousness with regard to years as teacher of record.

I am Mark Vagle. I am privileged on all social markers of identity. I would easily qualify under the proposed rule. And again, we have plenty of Mark Vagle’s.

We need way more Bettina Love’s. Please join me in co-conspiring.

Thank you.

Mark D. Vagle, PhD

To comment on Standard 24, mention R 4576 Subpart 5: Standards for Teacher Educators, #24, email Michelle Vaught, Michelle.Vaught@state.mn.us and post on the admin website that is currently accepting feedback. Your voice matters!

If you have questions, email the Office of Teacher Education, ote@umn.edu.

Four alumni from the Department of Curriculum and Instruction (C&I) are recipients of the 2019 CEHD Distinguished Alumni Awards. This award honors CEHD alumni who have excelled in their fields and contributed greatly to their communities. Award recipients belong to a wide range of academic disciplines and career paths, but all are individuals who have made profound impacts in the lives of children, youth, families, schools, and organizations. 

A total of 14 alumni from the college will be honored November 21 at the McNamara Alumni Center. The four recipients from C&I are:

• Alice Moormann, BS in Art Education, 1960. Moormann has dedicated more than five decades to the important work of voter education and participation in democracy. She became a volunteer with the League of Women Voters Minneapolis at the time of the Vietnam War as a way to learn more about the political process. Since then she has served in many positions for the Minneapolis and statewide leagues, including volunteer coordinator, nominations chair, and co-president twice.

• David Vick, BS in Elementary Education, 1967;  MA, Educational Administration ‘73; PhD Educational Administration ‘87. David Vick has the  most CEHD degrees of anyone. He has a bachelor’s, master’s, doctorate, and specialist certificate in elementary education and administration. As a superintendent, he helped in the passage of a building referendum, resulting in selling an outdated school, destroying two old buildings to construct a LEED Certified elementary school, and remodeling an old middle school.

• Charlie Miller, PhD in Curriculum and Instruction, 2007. Miller helped to establish and lead the Institute for Design Innovation in CEHD, now known as Educational Technology Innovations or ETI. His early groundwork positioned CEHD as a pioneer in sharing research-based best practices and interventions with teachers. He co-founded Flipgrid—a video platform for recording and sharing student voices which was acquired by Microsoft in 2018. Today, Charlie is Partner General Manager of Flipgrid at Microsoft.

• Brad Hosack, MA in Curriculum and Instruction, 2010. Bradford Hosack, a lifelong learner, educator, and inventor, is dedicated to changing the way students learn through the design and development of educational software. As a graduate student in CEHD, he teamed up with Charles Miller to co-create Flipgrid—a video platform for recording and sharing student voices. Hosack is currently Vice President of Engineering and Product Technology for Carnegie Learning. 

Learn more about our academic programs in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction

George Dalbo is PhD candidate in social studies education who want to help teachers to educate for and about human rights in the classroom.

What is your research focus?

Broadly, my research interests are focused around Holocaust, genocide, and human rights education in K-12 spaces, especially middle and high school classrooms and curricula. For my dissertation research, I am interested in conducting a comparative case study examining the ways in which genocide, especially the genocide of Indigenous peoples, is taught in schools in Minnesota and Manitoba. 

What drove you to enroll in the Ph.D. in Social Studies program?

I had been a middle and high school social studies teacher for ten years before entering the program. During these ten years, I had developed and taught a Holocaust studies elective course, which, as I learned more through my independent reading and professional development, transitioned into a comparative genocide studies elective course. Despite the Holocaust and genocide education resources that exist for teachers, I had many questions about how to best approach these difficult subjects with students. These questions ultimately drove me to pursue a Ph.D. in social studies education. In fact, despite being a full-time doctoral student, I continue to teach my comparative genocide studies elective each spring. This has allowed me to bring my study and research into the classroom. 

What do you hope to get out of your educational experience?

I hope to join a community of like-minded, critical scholars working to examine pressing social issues and work to challenge and reform how educational systems operate. I hope to gain the tools to (collaboratively) research and write and to work with K-12 students, pre-service teachers, and practicing educators to better understand how to educate about and for human rights. 

Were there any surprises and challenges along the way?

I have been most surprised by all of the opportunities that have presented themselves during my time in the program. For example, I had the opportunity to take an interdisciplinary graduate seminar class that not only included students across many different departments at the UMN but also students from universities in Helsinki, Finland and Bochum, Germany. While the UMN students met in person, our colleagues from Europe joined us via WebEx video conferencing. We had the opportunity to meet each other in person at a conference organized at the UMN where we presented our final class papers. Additionally, attending national and international conferences, such as the College and University Faculty Assembly (CUFA), American Educational Research Association (AERA), and the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) conferences have all given me the opportunity present my research and become a member of supportive networks of graduate students and professors from around the world. The department provides funding to help support attending such conferences. 

While there have certainly been some challenges transitioning out of a middle/high school classroom and adjusting to graduate school, honestly, these challenges have been minimal, and the support of faculty, staff, and fellow graduate students has been plentiful. The core required courses in the department (CI 8134 and CI 8135) provided an invaluable introduction to the department, graduate school, and educational research with fellow first-year graduate students. 

What has been your experience with the faculty?

My experience with faculty both in Curriculum and Instruction, as well as outside of the department, has been fantastic! Graduate classes are small, typically 10-12 students, which allows you to get to know faculty in a more intimate setting. Everyone I have encountered in (and out) of the department has been so supportive of my development as an academic. In addition to coursework, faculty in the social studies have been supportive as I took on new roles as a university supervisor, supervising pre-service teachers during their field placements and as an instructor within the licensure program. In the end, the social studies department is a small group of faculty and graduate students, who work closely with, and support, each other through all aspects of the program. 

Learn more about the PhD program in social studies education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.