Supporting Alternatively Certified Teachers

I'm Brian Myers. I'm Mike Ritalik. I'm Becky Hiddad. And this is Alpellis, a podcast featuring tips for ad teachers.

We are your agricultural education resource across the web, sharing research based tips and tackling the tough questions facing agriculture teachers every day. Welcome to another episode of Alpellis Tips for Ad Teachers Podcast. This is Brian. I am here with Becky and Mike and we are here by the Alpellis and I have a burning question for Becky.

Becky, what was your favorite kind of music when you were growing up? Hey, that's not a fair question because when I was growing up, just listen to whatever your parents listen to. I'm sure you look to me like you liked grunge music, right? And that reminds me of Alpellis.

I definitely have that one. I listened to a lot of grunge music. You know, I was at the dairy farm. Just like, you know, me and the cow was grunge music.

It was a lot of things my tractor sexy. Kenny Jesmy was probably was where it was at in the early 90s when I was growing up. Those cows melt better with grunge music. Yeah.

And I appreciate Mike doing that because she's trying to make an old joke on us. Mike, I'll just ignore that. Well, you're listening to it in the early 90s. And why is this where we're starting alternative music, which makes me think of alternative certified teachers.

And that's what we're going to be talking about today. You are digging it, man. Dig in deep. Kelly, help us out here.

Thanks Ruby with us here today. Yes, absolutely. Thanks for having me. We really need to make this a video podcast because if you could see the look on Kelly's face as we got started, she's like, what the heck did I get myself into?

I mean, I knew what it was, but the fact that I came back for more. It is. It is. We do.

We're not able to listen to that glorious podcast of past that you've done with us. Why don't you go ahead and reintroduce yourself to our outlets audience. Excellent. So I'm Kelly Clacklin.

I'm currently an assistant professor of agro science education at the Ohio State University and taught high school and middle school agriculture in Wisconsin and spent some time in Oregon and Virginia as well in Niagara Rules. So Kelly, give us a quick overview of the topic of our conversation today. Yeah. So the research that I completed was a continuation on a few other studies on alternatively certified agriculture teachers are really those that are non traditional from the profession may consider normal ego and get a bachelor's or master's in agricultural education, your degree might say agricultural education, and then you go into the classroom where there's lots of other ways to enter profession because there's those teacher shortages that we know a lot about.

And so this study looked at how alternatively certified teachers were learning how to be a teacher's and especially kind of teachers were broadly defined around a program. So not just how to teach, but how to manage and have a big chapter and supervise SAE's because a lot of the conversations anecdotally that I was hearing and having conversations, people were thinking about well, these teachers are lacking something because they didn't come through a traditional agate program and learn about the physical model and more based learning and the current agate piece and like we need to help them, which I mean we all need help in some way or the other, whether it's super professional development or no personal girl. I feel like she was looking right at Brian when she said that. I think you're based in a range on my screen, but you know, that has to be.

But thinking about well, we had alternatively certified teachers for decades like some of the best teachers we know may have been alternatively certified. So how are they currently learning and how can we supplement that and take kind of what's currently going on to make some recommendations and help support new teachers? I think this is a great topic and a great conversation. And before we really dig into some of those things that we want to talk about related to these non-certified teachers, we collectively know the preparation that people have when they go through a teacher certification program and you know, may vary slightly by state, but primarily it's all the same, but that's not necessarily the case for non-certified teachers.

So tell us a little bit about who that population are and who's coming to us from other places when it comes to teaching agriculture. Yeah, so that terminology to start with, whether it's alternative or non-certified, like none of those terms work. You know, some states might have provisional licenses, you might hear lateral entry teachers that are coming from industry. And so a lot of our terminology is specific and none of it fully encompasses the diverse folks and their experiences that they're bringing with them to their classroom.

So in my study, I talked to 12 teachers from across the United States with varying years of teaching experience from their first year teaching to like year 27, like counting down the years to retirement. And so it was really hard to define. And so I use alternatively certifier or alternative certification just because it's kind of a well-known umbrella term, but really doesn't get at who those folks are. So in the study that we're talking about, we have some teachers that were provisionally certified after going through a teacher preparation program, but due to licensure tests or portfolios or GPA with some kind of issue, there was some hold up at the end.

Not because they didn't want to be a teacher or not complete that program, but there was some kind of hoop that they weren't making it through. So they had the knowledge and the experience and sometimes even student teaching. And they have a license just look different and they have required different things. We also have folks that are coming from other educational subjects.

So they've gone through teacher preparation. They may have years of teaching experience, but CTE or agricultural education is new, but they have that education fee. So it's not like they've never taught before. Then we have folks coming in from industry, which historically we go back to 1917 and House of Matthews was written, really egged and family consumer ed for home making.

We're the only ones that didn't just go like, you just need industry experience, like we should maybe have bachelor's program answer these folks. So for all other CTE areas, well, for an observation is the norm. Again, it's not. You know, depending on state, it's different, but all the folks that I talk to them and certified in a non-traditional format are matter do so because either that's the way they get their license to jump through the hoops within the state that they're at, but also because they love students and they want to help them.

They want to help them grow and develop and become leaders in their community and they want to teach them about agriculture. Nobody I've talked to in the study or outside or going to say like, oh, like I just need a job, I guess I'm going to teach egg and like it's just going to be a break. They know that they want to make impact on students and I think that's really important for us to remember. Even thinking about that variety of people, like in two minutes, the variety you cover of you know, of intentions of where they come from in these backgrounds, I think you said right off the bat, we're not talking about just this group of 22 year olds that we know what their experience and training has been.

And so when you think about the different touch points they have in terms of support, how do we show value for those different types of experiences for folks in support roles? How do we account for that variety of experience that you've outlined? Yeah. So I think one thing that is as we have conversations, whether it's within teacher organizations or state staff or teacher educators or just you know, teachers huddled around the coffee pod at a contest or you know, conference, is to recognize that everybody has something to bring.

And if we kind of take out this idea of there's limitations to state licensure policy that we can't immediately snap our fingers and change, there's things that we need to follow at the university level to have a curriculum that can be improved and a number of credits and location. And so if we kind of ignore all those hurdles and think about there's books that want to teach and 99% of the time they're doing what they can and above and beyond to make sure they're good teachers. And so recognizing that experience and getting to know folks. I think a lot of folks that are coming in that are maybe a little bit older than 22 years old have some like experiences that makes that transition a little bit easier.

I think we also know I don't have data to support this society in a total, but a lot of folks get higher near home. And so it may be their hometown school that they're really devoted to. And so they have community support, maybe already or family support or that they know people within a get. So I think before we just go like, I don't even know this person, like they didn't come through a teacher program like I've never heard of them before, thinking of getting to know them at what experiences that they bring, especially with industry, which is something that you know, varies with our current research teacher population before we make assumptions and what they may need or what they may know etc.

As you were talking, the thing that really struck me in terms of the advantages that they have that are traditionally served by a 22 year old, my not. The thing that I hadn't really thought of before was just this. They also understand the world of work, which I think I just I haven't thought of it in those terms, but for somebody to come in who has worked another job and who has kind of worked through this like working is hard. The child is a part of hard.

They probably come to teaching with a little bit different attitude about what they can look to expect from the world of work. Yeah, well, and they're choosing to do it with some prior knowledge of like, you know, maybe it's, you know, somebody told them they should be a teacher and like it's taken a few job changes to get them to that part or like opening or somebody recommending it at the right time. But they're like, yeah, these other things I'm not working actually, education is where I'm at or like, no, I'm going to choose this. And folks that have families and rich lives and not to say that our graduates don't and that we don't have non-traditional age students and our pre-service teacher at programs.

But I think there's some rich experiences that ultimately certified teachers bring to our program that haven't been fully recognized maybe because we think about all the things that we can't change with licensure and all of the stuff. I really appreciate how you start the conversation talking about our language is important here. One thing that we've been mentoring around here is trying to use the terminology of pathways to teaching because here in Florida, we count up at least six different ways that we as a university can engage with somebody to help get them the licensure they need to become a teacher. And so which one tradition, which was not just, I don't know, there's at least six of them come through there.

The other thing that we're facing that I think we're going to see more and more across the country is our legislature is getting ready to go into session. And one of the things that came out by one of the leaders of the Senate was her push to as the president of the Senate to deregulate education. That's her words, deregulate education. We don't know exactly what that means, but part of that we think is going to be how people become licensed and certified to teach in the state.

And we as teacher educators have to figure out what we're going to do to stay relevant because right now people kind of have to go through us. But then also as a larger agate community, what are we going to be doing to support everybody that regardless of their pathway on how they got here to be part of the solution because I think we're seeing people come and go from this profession, more like a normal profession that out about to do those sort of things. So with all of that happening, what are your thoughts and what did you find to really help these folks that came in through this other pathway to be successful and how we help replicate that? Yeah.

Well, I think where the frustration probably lies is not in the people. It's the legislation and policies that are so inflexible or like we have to like navigate around. That's where I think the deficit language and the frustration is from. So in talking to the teachers on my study, some of them had prior preparation.

Some of them were just kind of thrown into the classroom. And you know, when teacher talk about, I was giving the keys and said, Hey, like go do a good job. Like there's greenhouse and not that administration wasn't supported. But then it really depends on the state or educational service area or district or whatever you would call that group in your state that may provide support.

You know, some of the participants were enrolled in college courses. Some were part of an alternative certification licensure program. Some were not. So they were balancing a lot and trying to learn.

They were really learning by doing a lot at the time. And it's not just teaching, but it's how does a school district work and where do I send an IFA membership and what are these forms or that develop? What's a, you know, what's Perkins? What's, you know, a concentrator?

All the lingo, et cetera. And so recognizing that again, they were doing it for the kids. What helped them through that is somebody connecting with them. So I'm a neighbor, a neighbor, a teacher down the road, maybe somebody that they knew that said, Hey, talk to this teacher.

Sometimes it was folks in the community or alumni, somebody that helped them say like, okay, here's who you should talk to. Or, you know, I'm a reference. So I think you go mentoring and, you know, I know you all have been having conversations about mentoring. It's not just waiting for some formal thing, but just reaching out.

And again, that goes for any new teacher. I looked at how they were learning to be teachers as part of a community. And so if you don't know that community exists or if you don't have kind of a key to the community, it's really hard. And that's one of the reasons I think so many of us love that I get is because of that community.

But we also, we know the lingo and we know kind of the things that we value like, you know, the always a simple knowledge of wisdom and there's a reason why it's all well, right? There's a meaning towards it. Well, if you don't know any of that and not saying that all, you know, non traditionally certified teachers do, but some of them don't have any school they stay at background. Some have a ton.

And so, you know, having somebody to introduce them into the group, introducing them to new teachers around the area, introducing them to state staff or those people that are supporting eight teachers in the state because sometimes school hires an eight teacher, alternatively, and nobody knows, right? You have to like go search them out to try to help them. So yeah, I think getting to then know that lingo in terms within the states and within the agate, but also just not assuming that they don't know anything or that they don't care because that's not a little bit anybody. And our house we talk about how hard it is to become non oblivious and not to imply that the teacher's article I think emphasizes that importance that you talk about, someone else doing that connecting.

And I think so often it's really easy as somebody who is in the conversation or somebody who's been involved to say, just ask, just, well, okay, but I don't know what I need, like, I don't know what I need to ask for. I don't know what you can offer. So in terms of, you know, helping people be that someone to help connect, what are some things that, you know, that connector could ask about or what are some ways they could start that conversation with that new teacher, whether new or, you know, however they're new, how do we encourage starting that conversation? Yeah, I think it's an email or a phone call or, you know, stopping by or encouraging them to come visit your school and just letting them know your resource.

But also part of it is like, if you're at it, that's literally introduced to other people and you almost need to sponsor a new teacher, right? And a lot of times our corporate teachers are getting that or former A teachers are those teachers that have been part of school they say good. But you have to be like, hey, this is a great teacher. Like you all need to get to know this person and they need to get to know you, those actions.

Like, I remember talking to new teachers and someone, my friends, I was all trying to work with five and she had texted and said, what if I weird to this? Like, is it super professional? Is it business casual? Can I wear jeans?

You know, letting them know to ask that or say like, hey, you know, normally you drop kids off here, like teachers have their own arms. Like, what are the things that may not be explicit in what we do, whether it's through like A teacher's conferences or professional development, ABA things, what are they expected to do that? No, we like saying like, if you don't do this, we're probably going to judge you, but we do judge you if you don't do this. So coming to the professional development or summer conferences and things like that, kind of giving a lay up a lay up one of the participants in the site talk about being a young pup as a teacher, a new teacher or a veteran teacher, as a convention said, hey, you're going to help come judge us and I'm going to tell you, you know, what that expectations are to be an teacher I can mention.

And that's really helpful, right? And so I think there's that on the other side. The recommendations is if you're a new teacher, especially if you're not traditionally certified and you may be a new day, don't be afraid to get involved, which I'm afraid of almost everything. So like, I get it if you're like, these are, it's nerve wracking going to a new place where you might not know anybody.

One of our teachers in the study talked about like the first year she went to a event, she's like, I looked around and I didn't know anybody, I didn't have, you know, I didn't know what to do. And then actually, somebody is in your seat, right? Like it takes a little bit, but observing is just as powerful learning as professional development or other things to kind of figure out what's going on. If you're not going to those things, which one you need to know about to go to, that's going to limit some of your warning and making those connections as well.

This has been fantastic. And so as we kind of wrap this up as a summary, you know, if you can talk to state leaders, these are state of a day advisors, state supervisors, university, what's one or two things that you think needs to be on top of the state leaders minds from your study to make sure that we are welcoming to individuals from all pathways to teaching? Yeah. So I think one is to not let the policies and the things that we can't control hold us back totally.

I think a whole other conversation has to be how to navigate to make that better. But I really like the brain of mind of like, what's currently going on and how can we build up with that? And so recognizing that, you know, we don't have an homogenous group. We can't assume people background and we can't assume that they're not learning or caring, just because we don't see them, you know, oftentimes to get licensed.

They have to complete programming and classes and, you know, get support and then they want to be there. So I think it's, you know, the assumptions, but encouraging mentoring programs in general. And I think there's a fine line, my conversations with state staff in lots of places is do you do something separate for the others or do you include them in? And I think there's, you know, it depends.

So like some of our traditionally certified teachers can use the same knowledge, you know, if they hadn't been through school, they say, get as a student or, you know, like, you never not benefit from information. I think, you know, recognize that that community and getting them connected is going to make a huge difference than always just like putting them in their own corner or two, I guess. That's fantastic. Great, great way and great thoughts for us to wrap up this conversation.

Kelly, we really do appreciate you coming and having a conversation with us again. You're doing great work there at the Ohio State University. Keep those Buckeyes going. We appreciate you and your entire team.

And we hope that folks go out and look at this piece of work that you've done with other conversations and engage on social media. Share with us some of your stories. What did you find to be helpful as you were beginning to regard us with your pathway to teaching and your journey? And so for Becky and Mike, this is Brian.

We are here by the Outbellet. We hope you had a phenomenal day and look forward to interacting with you on all of our social media sites. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Outbellets. Check out our website for more information on this topic and to learn more about our guests.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as they connect it. And be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never miss an episode. For Mike and Becky, this is Brian here by the Outbellets saying thank you and we look forward to seeing you again on another episode of Outbellets. Tips for Egg Teachers.