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Columns::April 7, 2003
Telling tales: Peabodys announced for 62nd year
Three faculty receive university’s Creative Research Awards
Richard Russell Foundation funds new professorship in agriculture
State’s business schools sweep GM competition
Five undergraduates receive mid-term Foundation Fellowships
Formula for success
Administrative Changes
Kudos
Enhancing Quality Teaching
Training Day
Campus News
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| A former bilingual teacher and teacher of English as a second language, Martha Allexsaht-Snider teaches courses on families, schools and communities. (Photo by Peter Frey) |
Choosing a career was ‘elementary’ decision for education professor
By Michael Childs
mchilds@coe.uga.edu
Even when Martha Allexsaht-Snider was a child, she knew she wanted to be a teacher when she grew up. At least, that’s what her mother told her she said after her first day in the first grade in Mannville, N.J.
“I don’t really remember that,” she says, “but I have had teachers in my family and I’ve certainly had teachers who inspired me.”
What Allexsaht-Snider does remember is that she has always been fascinated with human learning and how to foster that process.
“I’ve had experiences where I saw education modeled in very innovative and exciting ways and I’ve had experiences where education was not as innovative,” she says. “And I wanted to be able to contribute to making the broadest educational opportunities available to the broadest range of students.”
A former bilingual teacher and teacher of English as a second language, Allexsaht-Snider teaches courses on families, schools and communities. Her research focuses on teaching and classroom culture, family-school linkages in diverse contexts, mathematics teaching and learning, and professional development and teacher education in multicultural and multilingual settings.
She also directs one of the largest programs in the College of Education--early childhood education. With 200 students in the program, all in field experience every semester, Allexsaht-Snider spends a lot of her time coordinating and problem-solving. She works with 28 different elementary schools and teacher liaisons, and faculty and instructors who work with the students.
“One of the biggest challenges I face is to maintain the vision I have for the work being a creative process and continuing to re-invent our teacher education program to be a dynamic process that responds to the needs of the state,” she says.
But administrative duties aside, as a teacher-educator and researcher Allexsaht-Snider is an important part of UGA’s widely respected elementary education department, whose graduate program has been ranked in the nation’s top 10 for the past several years.
She came to UGA to work at a major research university where she could combine research with teacher education and work with graduate-level students.
And she has not been disappointed. She and her colleagues have been encouraged to engage in innovative research and program development. “We’ve really had good support for collaboration with schools in what we call co-reform--reforming teaching in schools at the same time as we are reforming teacher education,” she says.
Allexsaht-Snider has always been interested in the relationship between teaching and learning.
“I always integrate the work I do as a researcher with my teaching--my teaching informs my research,” she says. “I’ve also always worked to support teachers. I sought opportunities for professional development when I was a teacher, and I’ve continued to seek those opportunities as a teacher-educator.”
But she is concerned that her newly prepared teachers will be working in school systems that put too much emphasis on children’s achievement on standardized tests.
“I think we’ve tipped the balance,” she says. “We just need to remember that we’re nurturing children’s learning in the broadest sense. They need to learn academics, but part of that balance is learning to be a citizen, learning to be a human. We can’t lose sight of the broad goals we have for education.”
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