Page 16 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 94, No. 1 Fall 2013

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”
here was a time when being a new teacher was
a relatively solitary practice, when teaching
fellows were overworked and under-mentored,
leaving them, in the words of SPS Dean of
Curriculum and Teaching Lawrence Smith,
to “sink or swim.”
The power of collaboration should never be dismissed.
It was through the sharing of ideas that two opposing
rowing coaches – Smith, then a faculty member at Phil-
lips Exeter Academy, and SPS Rector Mike Hirschfeld ’85,
then a vice rector at the School – began to shape a vision
that would change the way young teachers are developed
in the boarding school environment.
“Lawrence and I have known each other for a long time,”
says Hirschfeld. “We got to know each other through
these two-hour launch rides once a year as our crews
competed against each other. We
would talk a little bit about rowing
but also a lot about schools, and
how schools work – just about the
life of these places.”
It was after Hirschfeld stopped
coaching in 2010 that he encoun-
tered Smith in front of the Crum-
packer Boathouse while checking
in on his former charges. The two
men were soon engaged in a con-
versation about the profession-
alization of teaching in boarding
school environments. Explains
Hirschfeld, “It was a discussion
about making the profession more
professional.”
“I remember throwing out the
idea of a few schools pulling to-
gether with a criterion for a cer-
tification to mirror what public
schools do. And Lawrence said,
‘Why wouldn’t we talk to an edu-
cation school about making this
a master’s program?’” Hirschfeld said.
Smith describes the idea as not as much an altruistic
plan to help young teachers along, but as a symbiotic
relationship to “infuse our schools with life and energy
and enthusiasm while we create a pool of really qualified
young teachers.”
In the fall of 2012, the vision of Smith and Hirschfeld
became a reality. In partnership with the University of
Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, St. Paul’s
led eight other Northeastern boarding schools to create
the Penn Residency Master’s in Teaching program. The
PRMT is a two-year program that includes mentoring,
once-per-term weekend conferences for all 50 of the
fellows from the respective schools to come together
with Penn faculty, a week at Penn’s Philadelphia campus
in the summer, and regular assignments from and con-
tact with the Penn professors to support the classroom
side of the fellows’ development.
There are weekly small-group chats online with fel-
lows from similar disciplines, with discussions facilitated
by online mentors – faculty members from one of the
member schools.
The fellows themselves arrange frequent informal
Skype sessions to share their work with one another, a
powerful example of cohort learning in the age of tech-
nology. Stealing is encouraged, as fellows often offer video
of a lesson that worked particularly well for the purpose
of sharing new approaches with their colleagues.
St. Paul’s is home to 10 fellows, including five in their
second year. Other consortium schools include Deerfield
Academy, the Hotchkiss School, Lawrenceville School,
Loomis Chaffee School, Milton Academy, Miss Porter’s
School, Northfield Mount Hermon, and Taft School.
“The talk was about how we could develop something
that was from the start collabor-
ative,” says Earl Ball, director of
the PRMT and former head of Phil-
adelphia’s Penn Charter School,
noting the long struggle of inde-
pendent schools with the idea of
professional preparation for its
teachers.
“For years there was a stress
on academic preparation, but not
many options for pedagogical
thought. Boarding schools have
historically brought in wonder-
ful people and thrown them in
the deep end. We used to be able
to ignore a lot of what was being
said in teacher education. Now
with better knowledge of learning
styles and emphasis on collabora-
tive learning, there is an impetus
for more formal education.
“This idea makes sense for the
schools and also helps Penn de-
velop broader ideas of education.
Boarding schools get out of this a focused program and
Penn gets the opportunity to work with talented stu-
dents and test some approaches that could be applied
more broadly to other programs.”
While the approach to developing the fellows differs
slightly at the various consortium schools, at St. Paul’s
each fellow is assigned a mentor teacher to shadow in
their first term. They meet formally each week and count-
less times informally as they discuss best practices in the
classrooms. In the Winter Term, the first-year fellows
co-teach classes with their mentors and, in the spring,
they take over a classroom of their own, but with full-
time observation from the mentor. Second-year fellows
preside over their own classes, with input and guidance
from their mentors. All the while, the fellows are given
time to acclimate to the rigor of boarding school life –
coaching and advising and serving as liaisons between
parents and the School.
T
One of the
greatest benefits
is simply working
collaboratively
with teachers
at other schools
and breaking down
the barriers that
somehow exist
between schools.
“