Helping StudentsIdentify Dispositional

Qualities in

Kentucky’s Past, Present, and Future Educators

An Overview Where Can Students Find the Dispositions to Teach? How Important is Student Understanding of Public School

History in Developing Teacher Dispositions? How Can Yesterday’s Educators Help Students Identify the

Dispositions Necessary to Teach? How Can We Use State and National School Policy to Show

Students the Focus on Teacher Dispositions? How Can We Help Students Recognize the Dispositional

Qualities They Already Possess?

Where Can Students Find the Dispositions to Teach?

The Past The Present-At EKU Examples and Non-examples

Teacher Dispositions Can Be Found in the Past.

Source:Kentucky LeaderSeptember 21, 1888Ora Craven

“As the teacher, so is the school.”

We laugh at the Disney created “Ichabod Crane.” However, the image of the typical school teacher of the early 1800’s was somewhat different. The following “vision” of the teacher from the past comes from Ora Craven’s Kentucky Leader article found in the September 21, 1888 edition.

There is one blackboard, one small rostrum containing a chair and a teacher’s desk, behind which what shall we call him? Surely we must not

degrade the name of teacher by giving him that application.

He was a man, a lame man, a sour-faced man, whose very expression would dissuade a child from ever glancing from his book for fear of seeing that face. Before this grim-personage, we can still see the faces of trembling

children who really would have studied had they not been made too nervous by the frequent groan of a child who had just had a knife thrown

at him with all the force an angry school teacher could command.

A man who never prayed, who never read, and who never sang either with or for his pupils, who never sympathized with one single care or failure of

those entrusted to his training.

If we extend our picture to the recess hour can we be surprised to see the girls growing angry over their play, and so far forgetting their home

training as to actually slap each other. The boys fighting, throwing rocks, swearing when they choose, and frequently having such bitter quarrels

that the participants would not speak for years although constant school-mates. Could anything better be expected of children who were under

the training of such a teacher?

“As the teacher, so is the school.”

Teacher Dispositions Can Be Found in the Present in EKU Policy.

An Effective Teacher…

Believes Others Are Able. Sees Beyond the Immediate. Is Passionate about People as

Opposed to Things. And Feels a Oneness with All. Is Passionate about People as

Opposed to Things…

All of us have experiences being a student. All of us have examples and non-examples from that experience.

Mrs. KritzerJunior High

Home Ec

Mrs. Sanders5th Grade

How Important is Student Understanding of Public School History in Developing

Teacher Dispositions?

Jumpstarting Public Education in Kentucky

1792 Kentucky is admitted to the Union. The state's Constitution makes no

provision for public education.

1799

Kentucky's second constitution, like the

first, makes no provision for public

education.

1822The Barry Report recommends state support for education.

The legislature ignores the report.

1827A report shows that, of 140,000 children between the ages of five and fifteen, only 31,834 are enrolled in schools of any type.

1830 Spurred by the Woods-Peers Report, the General Assembly

makes a third attempt to establish a system of public schools. In the much-amended bill that finally gains approval, participation by counties is made optional,

weakening the plan beyond repair.

1836McGuffey's Readers

for first and second grades are

published in Cincinnati. They are the first of a series by William Holmes McGuffey, a native of Paris, Kentucky, and

headmaster of a Paris academy for

several years.

1838The General Assembly establishes a

system of common schools in legislation enacted February 16.

How Can Yesterday’s Educators Help Students Identify the Dispositions Necessary to Teach?

Kentucky Educators of the Past

James Bullock

Cora Wilson Stewart

Thelma Beeler

James Bullock becomes Kentucky's

first superintendent of public instruction.

"Kentucky has too much generous pride to be considered the Boeotia*

of this New World—too much patriotism to see the institutions that

were reared by the labor and toil, and bought with the price of the richest

blood of her fathers, totter and fall. Kentucky has too much humanity to

see more than one-third of her citizens growing- up in ignorance—too

much sound, sterling common sense to see one-third of the productive

capital of the state unemployed, or to pay an enormous tax to support

aged paupers and criminals, when by paying an inconsiderable sum toeducate all

the children of the state those evils could in a great measure

be avoided."

Cora Wilson Stewart

Cora Wilson Stewart taught school in Rowan County and in 1901, at the age of 26, was elected to the position of county school superintendent. She was re-elected in 1909. She is most known for her development of the Moonlight Schools.

Moonlight Schools

This program, according to historian Wanda Cook, "might well be

classified as the official beginning of literacy education in the United

States".

In 1915 Cora Wilson Stewart published the Country Life Reader: First Book and the next year she

published the Country Life Reader: Second Book. Both books featured functional materials from adult's

daily lives.

Thelma Beeler serves as another example of a teacher from the past with the “disposition” to teach.

How Can We Use State and National School Policy to Show Students the Focus on Teacher Dispositions?

In Kentucky

Other States

At the National Level

Each child, every child, in this Commonwealth must be provided

with an equal opportunity to have an adequate education."

Supreme Court OpinionRose v. Council for Better

Education, Inc.

Kentucky Department of Education

We Believe…..

All children can learn at high levels, and they

...possess a curiosity and desire to learn. ...respond positively to success and

enthusiasm. ...develop and learn at different rates. ...demonstrate learning in different ways. ...learn by being actively involved, by

taking risks, and by making connections.

Successful schools are for students, and they …expect a high level of achievement. ...provide the time and instruction to

achieve student success. ...provide connections with home and

community experiences. ...ensure a safe, positive environment. ...create opportunities to explore and grow.

Effective instruction facilitates learning, and it

...addresses identified academic expectations. ...assures success and risk taking. ...employs a variety of effective techniques to

address learning diversity. ...aligns curriculum, instruction, and assessment. ...connects curricular offerings to the life

experiences of students. ...encourages self-direction and life-long learning.

Kentucky Academic Expectations

“All students are capable of learning.”

Assumptions underlying KERA

Students shall develop their abilities to become self-sufficient individuals. 

Students demonstrate positive growth in self-concept through appropriate tasks or projects

Students demonstrate the ability to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Students demonstrate the ability to be adaptable and flexible

through appropriate tasks or projects. Students demonstrate the ability to be resourceful and creative. Students demonstrate self-control and self discipline. Students demonstrate the ability to make decisions based on

ethical values. Students demonstrate the ability to learn on one's own.

Students shall develop their abilities to become responsible members of a family, work group, or community, including demonstrating effectiveness in community service.

Students effectively use interpersonal skills. Students use productive team membership skills. Students individually demonstrate consistent, responsive,

and caring behavior. Students demonstrate the ability to accept the rights and

responsibilities for self and others. Students demonstrate an understanding of, appreciation

for, and sensitivity to a multi-cultural and world view. Students demonstrate an open mind to alternative

perspectives.

Kentucky Teacher StandardsNew Teacher Standard II:

Creates and Maintains Learning Climates.

The teacher creates a learning climate that supports the development of student abilities to use communication

skills, apply core concepts, become self-sufficient individuals, become responsible team members, think and

solve problems, and integrate knowledge.

Michigan Discern the extent to which personal belief

systems and values may affect the instructional process :

  love of learning the belief that all students can learn the belief that all students should be treated

equitably the role of expectations in affecting

achievement.

Illinois The competent teacher uses an

understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to create a learning environment that encourages positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation.

Promoting Dispositional Qualities Students Bring to EKU

Mr. Jackson

Ms. Storm

Mrs. Dalton

Ms. Ringer

We Must Help StudentsIdentify Dispositional Qualities in Past, Present, and Future Educators in Order to Help Them Develop Their Own Unique Dispositional Qualities.

At Eastern Kentucky University, exploring the unique dispositions of past educators and celebrating the unique dispositions of our students, our future educators, is an exciting journey.

June Hyndman, January 13, 2003 june.hyndman@eku.edu