Dr. Stephen J. Smith,

Director of Professional Programs

Congratulations on your acceptance into the Professional Development Program. You have prepared yourself well for entering this program, gaining life experiences, working with children and youth, and acquiring the academic knowledge required of a school teacher. The work you will undertake over the coming semesters should prepare you well for the demands of teaching.

Emphasizing carefully guided teaching practice, coupled with broad theoretical exposure to theories that inform that practice, the Professional Development Program will help you develop the necessary dispositions of teaching. You will be mentored by Faculty Associates of immense energy, dedication and care, and you will benefit greatly from instruction by Faculty members of diverse theoretical persuasions. Yet the onus is on you to create a a coherent, demonstrable, justifiable teaching practice of your own.

The Professional Development Program is about your own growth and development as a teacher; it is also about a vision making a difference that matters in the lives of those you will be teaching. Such a vision acknowledges the connections you forge with those entrusted to your care and recognizes, in the quality of these relationships, the real measure of teaching effectiveness. By helping you become the best teacher possible, we believe we are helping the schools do a better job of creating educational and caring communities for all children and youth.

Keep in mind that learning to teach is both a 'lifelong' as well as a 'life-wide' undertaking. The learning that inspires, informs and animates a teaching life comes quite broadly -- from reading, the arts, physical activities, language study, or any practice, for that matter, that is pursued with passion and thoughtfulness. The practice of teaching is comprised of specific knowledge, skills and values, however it is fundamentally a dispositional attunement to others, children and youth, that is informed by living widely and well.

The Professional Development Program makes meaning of a wealth of life experiences inside and beyond schools. You will be encouraged to attend to the primacy in learning and to create an ongoing, experiential inquiry into the means of learning to teach and of becoming a teacher who is a learner at heart.

I wish you well in the adventure that lies ahead.

Dr. Stephen Smith