The Hechinger Report – Peggy Barmore
“Thirty-plus teachers and teacher educators gathered in the conference room nodded emphatically as Eckhoff, 35, told of seeing more and more students coming to school not just deficient in academic skills, but carrying a lot of emotional baggage. Eckhoff knows what it’s like to feel unprepared for the trauma children can bring with them to school. One of her former first-graders attempted suicide, Eckhoff explained later. She was past those make-or-break first five years for a new teacher, and thought she had “a decent bag of tricks” for engaging students under emotional duress, “but it just seemed like nothing was working.” Would better training have helped her? Some states are turning to a new set of experts as they attempt to overhaul how educators are trained: teachers themselves. Eckhoff was among a group of veteran Missouri teachers who joined representatives of university teacher preparation programs and staff from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for a four-hour forum this fall as part of a state effort to change how teachers are prepared for the classroom and supported once they get there.”(more)