Student Teachers Learn 'On the Job'
It was John Cotton Dana, a giant of education in the lore of New Jersey, who said, “Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.” For the past two years, a number of Teacher Education students at Rider University have had the opportunity to simultaneously do both while enriching the minds of underprivileged children in Trenton.
The Rider students work with underprivileged second- through fifth-grade pupils living in the Trenton Police Department’s East District as part of an afterschool tutoring program begun in early 2007 by Det. Bob Russo of the Division of Community Affairs for the East District. And while the Rider students are confident that they have been well-trained for the classroom, the tutoring program has given them real-life lessons about the endless variables that exist for young students beyond the walls of school.
“I wanted to participate in the Trenton Police program to gain experience, but I also wanted to see how their environment really affects them,” said junior Erin Saunders, an Elementary Education and Psychology dual major. “I go to Stony Brook Elementary School in Pennington two days a week, and I noticed that these two areas are completely different and that environment really does affect the way a child learns.”
Kelly Dissinger agrees. “The experience, so far, has been better than I expected,” said Dissinger, a junior who is also a member of the cross country team at Rider. “For my classes right now, we observe suburban school classrooms, and I enjoy working with the kids there, but the difference between the two is very present. The tutoring program is a great opportunity to get experience that we don’t normally have.”
Two dozen Trenton schoolchildren attend the program, held in the East District headquarters on Greenwood Avenue, every Wednesday afternoon for two hours. There, they meet with student teachers from Rider and The College of New Jersey in Ewing for remedial work in basic skills and to complete homework assigned by their teachers.
Russo, who conceived the program along with Capt. Paul Messina, says the purpose for the Trenton Police Department is two-fold. “We identified a need for a tutoring program for underprivileged kids who could use that extra academic attention,” explained Russo, who said approval from the city’s Board of Education and local elementary school teachers was unanimous. “But another concept was to send the children the message that the police station can and should be a friendly place, and not something for them to fear.”
In search of interested and qualified student teachers, Russo reached out to David Oliver, who recently retired as the chair of the Department of Teacher Education at Rider. “He told me they were looking for six or seven student teachers per semester to assist these children in whatever they needed help with,” Oliver said. “Some of them just needed someone to read to them; some were just looking for a place to be safe.”
To be sure, the students who arrive weekly do not enjoy many educational or financial advantages maintained by their suburban counterparts. “For a lot of these kids, it’s no exaggeration to say they really have nothing,” said Susan Dintrone, an administrative associate for the Department of Teacher Education who now coordinates Rider’s student teachers for the Trenton program followig Oliver’s retirement. “Some of them live 45 minutes from the Jersey Shore, yet have never been there, so they’re really happy with almost anything we can do for them.”
Dintrone says the student teachers are equally thrilled to get involved. “Sometimes, the only experience they’ve had is in a more suburban setting,” she explained. “This gives them the opportunity to see elementary education in a different setting, and some of them find that it may, in fact, be more aligned with their calling.”
Sometimes, what the student teachers find is surprising. More often, however, the tutoring program simply reveals that kids are kids. “Helping them with their homework is a lot of fun,” Saunders said. “They really enjoy coming to the program, and they do get their work done. Once in a while they goof around, but I think every kid does.”
For others, the program has even offered them the opportunity to witness breakthrough moments. “The other week I had a third-grade boy who wanted to do long-division problems because he had seen an older boy doing them in his homework,” Dissinger said. “So I wrote down some problems and told him to try them. He looked at me, then at the paper, and said that he didn’t know how, but he wanted me to teach him how to do it. I was a little surprised at his willingness to want to learn because the other children usually play when they’re done with their homework, but I gladly told him I would teach him.
“After a few problems and explanations, he tried a few on his own and seemed to pick up the concept very quickly,” Dissinger continued. “When I told him he was right and complimented him on how smart he was, his face lit up with excitement and he told me he couldn’t wait to show his teacher the next day at school. These are the kinds of moments I want for other children, that moment when you can see that something has clicked and they finally understand a concept they thought was above them. These moments happen in every grade, age, ethnicity and school system, and I want to be a part of that, wherever the opportunity arises.”
The program, which Russo said began with just eight elementary students, has now tripled in size since its beginnings, and is operating with 15 student teachers on board. And what began as a way to bolster basic skills and discuss issues like bullying and talking to strangers is expanding with time. “We’ve brought in a number of student teachers from a music curriculum and begun individual music lessons on the recorder,” Russo said. “And we’re also bringing in computers, which is something they don’t get to use very much in the schools.”
Transportation from school to the East District Headquarters is no problem, either. “We pick them up in marked police cars and take them straight home, too,” explained Russo, who added that Irving Bradley Jr., director of the Trenton Police, has also designated a large excursion van to transport the children. “The kids love it, and the teachers love it.”
At the completion of each semester, all participants earn certificates -- the student teachers for community service, while the children receive graduation papers and are deputized as junior police officers. For the student teachers like Saunders, however, the real reward comes from the hope that she has made a difference in the children’s lives. “I want to be one of those teachers a child remembers throughout their whole life because I helped them in so many ways and made them realize that they can do whatever they put their mind to, without getting discouraged.”
