English Departments and the In-Service Training of Teachers

Charles Moran; J. T. Skerrett

doi:10.2307/377127

College English Apr 1981

English Departments and the In-Service Training of Teachers

Charles Moran ; J. T. Skerrett

Abstract

Secondary English teachers are in trouble, and they need our help, particularly in the design of curriculum and in the application of research to practice. School committees and Time magazine blame the high schools for the writing crisis, the reading crisis, and the mathematics crisis. High-school English departments are responsible for two of these three R subjects, and the back-to-basics movement has subjected these English teachers to intense pressure not only from the public but also from a publishing industry which is hustling curriculum materials of all kinds, offering a quick fix for a quick buck. Besieged on all sides, the high-school English teacher is an embattled colleague, and college and university English departments must help. Furthermore, in-service teacher training has an effect that is wonderfully broad. One high-school teacher will work with as many as 150 students in a year. If we can increase that teacher's effectiveness and if that teacher continues in the profession for ten years, we have improved the secondary education of nearly 1,500 students. These students will, many of them, appear in college classes. To the extent that they do, we become direct beneficiaries of our own good works. So much for noblesse. In-service teacher training is an activity that also serves our own unenlightened professional self-interest. First, it does not demand from us mas-

Journal: College English
Published: 1981-04-01
DOI: 10.2307/377127
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Open Access: Closed
Topics: teacher development
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English Departments and the In-Service Training of Teachers

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