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Introduction |
The Childhood Education Program prepares candidates for New York State certification in Childhood Education (1-6). The program is built around a progressive, child-centered philosophy, one that values the multiple facets of children's experience. Attention is paid to ethnic and racial diversity; to the importance of family and community in child-rearing; and to a holistic understanding of the emotional, social, intellectual, and physical lives of children in contemporary society. In terms of pedagogical arts, candidates receive extensive preparation in literacy, mathematics, science, and social studies instruction, as well as in formal and informal methods of assessing children's progress.
Faculty in childhood education share a commitment with other departmental faculty to ideals of social justice and equality, as well as to the importance of the arts, and these concerns are interwoven throughout our programs in childhood education.
M.A. in Childhood Education, Grades 1-6 (Precertification)
M.A. in Elementary Teachers, PreK-6 (In-Service)
Philosophy
The Childhood Education Program is guided by a shared understanding of what it means to be a teacher:
- Teachers are scholars committed to a life of study and inquiry, participating meaningfully in communities of study and inquiry.
- Teachers are agents for democratic social change, dedicated to the practice of freedom and work of justice.
- Teachers are people of aesthetic sensibility, passion, and personal vision, embracing beauty and imaginative possibility in their work.
- Teachers are people who know themselves, attending to their own growth through the practice of mindful and reflective self-examination.
The Childhood Education Program, reflective of this understanding of teaching and vision of education, offers a curriculum designed around the following defining features:
- Teachers collaboratively engage in scholarly study and open-minded inquiry through course work that is interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and inquiry-based.
- Teachers participate in socially-engaged praxis and community service through a program that advances critical pedagogy and service learning within a school-community partnership model.
- Teachers explore teaching as an art, requiring artistic expression and creative experimentation through direct engagement with the arts in arts-based classes, as well as direct experience with diverse teaching practices and possibilities via field-based courses in the pedagogical arts.
- Teachers cultivate their own character in a program that is student-centered, individualized through course work aimed at understanding oneself via autobiographical inquiry, critical self-examination, and contemplative practice–engaging teachers in the reflective practice of their craft and the articulation of personal vision through their work.
Please note: The M.A. in Childhood Education is an initial program for students who do not currently hold certification in elementary (childhood) education.
Qualified students certified in areas other than elementary education may enroll in this program in order to earn a second teaching certificate and fulfill the graduate degree requirement for professional (permanent) certification in both areas.
Upon application to the program, students' undergraduate transcripts will be evaluated for appropriate liberal arts course work required under New York State regulations. Any deficient course work must be completed prior to the final student teaching semester. The Department of Education Studies does not waive the student teaching requirement. In compliance with new State regulations, this program requires a minimum of 100 hours of fieldwork in schools prior to student teaching. This program certifies teachers for grades 1-6. It does not meet State requirements for the new Early Childhood, Birth-Grade 2 certificate. We are in the process of registering an Early Childhood master's program with the N.Y. State Department of Education, When approved, it will appear in future editions of this Bulletin.
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Contact
For additional information, please contact:
Devin Thornburg
Professor
Harvey Hall, Room 230
p - 516.877.4026
e - thornburg@adelphi.edu
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