Volume 11 Number 2
January 1972

Larry A. Faas

SIXTY-FIVE members of the Arizona Indian community are currently enrolled in a unique teacher preparation program at Arizona State University, Tempe. Participants can complete their training in four school years and five summers. Upon completion each participant will receive a bachelor’s degree and certification to teach in the elementary or secondary schools and special education.

Training and operational funding of the program is made possible by a grant to the Special Education Department at ASU from the Career Opportunities Branch of the Bureau of Educational Personnel Development, USOE. The salaries for the participants are supplied by local school districts, Head Start, Follow Through, Model Cities, Title I, ESEA, the BIA and Tribal Councils. The training program director is John Sullivan, and assistant director is Ernest Kelley.

The first two years of preparation are being offered in cooperation with Central Arizona College and other Arizona junior colleges. The final two years of study will be in the College of Education at ASU.

Participants were selected from personnel who were employed in the schools as teacher aides and those which the schools were willing to employ. Selection was based upon the joint recommendations of representatives of the local schools, tribes and the university.

Project participants are referred to as "teachers in training." They attend ASU full time each summer, concentrating their studies in classes which require laboratory facilities. Each fall they return to their home communities where they hold salaried positions in public, mission or BIA schools as "teacher aides" during the school year.

While working as teacher aides, trainees receive sufficient released time to permit them to continue their college work by attending classes held near their homes. This is made possible each week by having their college instructors travel to the four reservations where training groups are located. This permits trainees to live at home where they can maintain family ties and responsibilities and to continue their involvement in community and tribal affairs. Training groups are located on the Ft. Apache, Gila River, Papago and Salt River reservations.

Advisory councils at each of the four training sites assist the program directors in the selection of trainees and the formulation of program policies.

Each "teacher in training" is "teamed" with a classroom teacher as that teacher’s instructional aide. Training is provided for these teachers, the trainees, and their building principals in the effective utilization of teacher aides. This has resulted in increased involvement of participants in the instructional process. As a result, their involvement is not restricted to that of clerical workers who collect milk money and take attendance. As participants move toward graduation their responsibilities gradually increase until they are carrying out all of the duties and responsibilities of a teacher by the end of the fourth year.

Approximately 45 participants will receive their AA degrees (Associate of Arts) in the spring of 1972.

Graduates of this program will begin their first full-time teaching position with four years of closely supervised classroom experience. It is hoped that many will continue on as teachers on their home reservations following graduation.