The Mercer University field-based program in elementary education provides practical experience beginning in the junior year. The prospective teacher starts with observations in public school classrooms while enrolled in a foundations of education course. Opportunities to work directly with children commence in the second quarter of the junior year. Participants take mini-teaching assignments concurrently with college classwork on children's literature, art, music, physical education, science, and mathematics. Prior to their final year's field experience, seniors attend an intensive two-week, on-campus workshop dealing with professional ethics, dress, writing lesson plans, and coping with the culture shock that may come in facing classes of children with different cultural backgrounds. During their senior year, students work with two different grade levels in two distinct school populations prior to their actual student teaching. By this point, the seniors are mostly confident of their ability to function successfully in a classroom and move into full-time teaching, with the supervising teacher present only for evaluation or to aid with special activities. A follow-up study of graduates of the program revealed great satisfaction in the way in which the program prepared them for teaching. (JD)