Teachers are held accountable for improving the literacy skills of PreK-12 pupils. However, the processes (or lack thereof) by which teachers at the various levels of schooling are deemed skilled and become actually prepared for such complex challenge have not been explored in depth. This article focuses on urban preservice teachers' beliefs…

This article is a description of the perceptions of pre-service teachers who have chosen to study in a teacher education program designed specifically to prepare them to work in urban elementary schools. Twelve volunteer participants were interviewed in the spring following their admission into the program. Participants and the researcher also…

Novice teachers who begin their careers in urban settings abandon teaching at dismal rates. Although teacher education programs make varying efforts to incorporate awareness about the diverse contexts of urban schooling into the preservice teacher curriculum--from the "one course approach" to whole curriculum imbedded--little is known about the…

Student teachers are rarely encouraged by experienced educators to consult schoolchildren to understand teaching and learning. Sometimes student teachers are not encouraged because of a believed incapacity to interact discernibly with schoolchildren--a belief stemming from minimal life experiences with people unlike themselves. Notions of…

This article examines the experiences of new faculty entering the Charter College of Education (CCOE) at California State University. As new faculty members, the authors describe how they were welcomed into the CCOE, how they were invited into projects, how easy it was to make connections with other faculty, how much they felt valued and welcomed,…