Teaching Internships Are Catching On

West Point graduate Sergio Mora spent five years in the Army and fought in the Gulf War. But ask him what’s tougher--doing battle in Iraq or teaching high school math, and he’s adamant that there’s no contest.

His current job as a first-year teacher at Montclair High School in San Bernardino County, Mora says, is “harder than leading men into combat.”

Luckily, the 29-year-old veteran is getting plenty of help. He is a teaching intern, the education equivalent of the medical school graduate who treats real patients under the close supervision of experienced doctors.

Mora took teacher preparation courses last summer at Claremont Graduate School and was a student teacher for several weeks before plunging in full-time in his own classroom last September. But when he faces his “patients”--9th- and 10th-graders in basic math courses--he gets regular aid and comfort from a Claremont faculty advisor with 20 years of high school teaching experience.

“You don’t just get sent to a school to sink or swim on your own,” Mora said, explaining the appeal of the 42-year-old Claremont program, one of the first in the country to offer teaching internships.

Although the intern model of teacher education has been around since the 1950s, it is only now gaining popularity in California, where a statewide initiative to reduce class size in kindergarten through third grade has created a crushing demand for teachers.

“Suddenly, colleges and universities all over the state are gearing up internship programs,” said Dennis Tierney, who directs research for the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. “The world has caught up with the internship concept, particularly [because of] the class-size reduction act.”

Tierney said the number of intern programs in accredited institutions of higher education has almost doubled in six years, from 30 in 1991 to 50 this year. Many school districts, such as those in Los Angeles and Long Beach, have launched their own intern programs, often in partnership with a state college.

The programs are attractive in part because they can get new teachers into the classroom more quickly than traditional programs, while offering the novices advice from experienced faculty and a paycheck while they are learning.

They also respond to policymakers’ demands for closer collaboration between schools and the colleges and universities that train teachers. The state Department of Education and the credentialing commission “have been aware of the teacher shortage for a long time--even before class-size reduction,” said education professor Jeannie Oakes, who heads UCLA’s teacher preparation program. “Part of the response has been to move teacher education increasingly into schools.”

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UCLA last year launched a two-year master’s program that requires students to spend the second year in a teaching residency at an inner-city school. As in the Claremont program, UCLA students go out and land a full-time teaching job, but after a year of study. They are supported by a UCLA faculty member and an experienced mentor teacher at their new school.

All but two of the 22 California State University campuses offer teacher intern programs. Bill Wilson, CSU director of teacher education, said the system is working more closely with school districts to give teaching candidates earlier and more hands-on classroom experience.

Some studies show that interns have greater staying power than teachers who enter the profession through other avenues. An estimated 50% of new teachers quit within five years, but some studies show that the attrition rate among graduates of internship programs is less than 20%.

One reason may be that internships tend to attract career-changers, such as Mora, who may be more mature and committed to teaching and have a more realistic understanding of the job demands because they already have work experience.

Another reason such programs may be more effective is that they give students more teaching experience, melding theory with practice.

In more traditional programs, would-be teachers soak up theory in textbooks and in lecture halls from instructors who may never have managed a classroom of 20 to 30 wiggling youngsters. They spend several weeks as a student teacher apprenticed to a fully certified instructor.

Many new teachers complain that by the time they begin their first job, they barely remember the strategies they studied, or they discover that the theories don’t apply to real classroom situations.

“I watched things go right over their head because they weren’t out there teaching,” said Sally Thomas, director of the Claremont program, recalling her experiences teaching prospective teachers at another college years ago. “If you’re not learning those things while you’re teaching, it doesn’t stay in your head.”

At Claremont, the internship is bracketed by two summers of intensive study. When participants enter the classroom in September, they have an intern credential from the state, which allows them to teach full-time if they have a bachelor’s degree and have passed an exam or courses that demonstrate subject-matter competency. During the school year, the interns are also taking courses toward their full credential at night.

Faculty advisors visit their classrooms to observe and offer advice every week during the first month on the job. The visits are scheduled every two to three weeks for the rest of the school year.

Mora says he values the support he has received from his advisor, Ron Woggon, a former math teacher at Rowland High School in Rowland Heights. Woggon has dipped into his own supplies for teaching materials Mora could use.

Many of Mora’s students have failed math since elementary school and struggle with family problems, drugs and gang pressures. Mora, who was a missionary in Mexico after he left the Army, thought he could change them overnight. But Woggon has helped him to understand it could take much longer.

“He told me it’s a years-long process to convince a student he’s actually worth something. That’s the best thing he’s told me--not to see myself as a savior,” said Mora, who describes his job as a roller coaster, up one day and crashing the next.

“I still have a lot to learn,” he said.

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Training on the Job

Many colleges, universities and school districts train prospective teachers through internship programs. Some institutions and districts offering programs in Southern California:

* Cal State L.A.: (213) 343-4350

* Cal State Long Beach: (310) 985-4508

* Cal State Northridge: (818) 677-4852

* Cal State Fullerton: (714) 773-3411

* Cal State Dominguez Hills: (310) 243-3519

* Cal State San Diego: (619) 594-1370

* Claremont Graduate School: (909) 621-8076

* Bonita Unified School District: (909) 599-6787

* Long Beach Unified School District: (310) 436-9931

* Los Angeles Unified School District: (213) 625-6000

* San Diego Unified School District: (619) 293-8686

NOTE: For information about programs in other locations, call the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing at (916) 445-7254.

Source: California Commission on Teacher Credentialing