Teach to Transform
Why Does the San Diego Teacher Residency Exist?
The reality of what happens in American classrooms is pretty bleak. . . Kids spend most of their time doing inauthentic and low level tasks. Biology students take quizzes on the parts of the cell. Social studies students race through centuries of history in the span of a week. English students write their 97'th five-paragraph essay. They have very few opportunities to engage in sustained dialogue, to collaboratively problem solve, or to make connections across disciplines. To make things worse, large numbers of students, particularly from linguistically and culturally marginalized communities are not able to be their full selves in school.
Rather than being celebrated for their brilliance and potential, they're forced to assimilate with the white-middle class norms associated with the American culture of power. This exacerbates the inequalities and injustices that have dominated our society from the beginning. |
What Does the Residency Do?
The residency endeavors to prepare teachers for the schools and the world that we need, not for the ones that we have. Its goal is to educate teacher residents for justice and deeper learning so they can do the same for the young learners and communities that they will serve.
Teacher residents work is embedded in the high tech high school community. All High Tech schools, employ a project based model of instruction that strives to engage students in authentic and liberatory work. The Residency is designed to help teacher candidates learn to educate for justice and deeper learning via projects which are interdisciplinary and rooted in real-world problems, build social-emotional as well as academic skills, and are grounded in anti-racist and anti-bias pedagogy. |