Dean Jon Snyder: Transforming Teacher Education at Bank Street
by Sybil Maimin

In a recent conversation with Education Update, Jon Snyder, Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Bank Street College, enthusiastically described two current initiatives, the Kerlin Science Institute and Teachers for a New Era, that illustrate Bank Street’s mission to “discover the environments in which children grow and learn to their full potential, and to educate teachers and others to create these environments.” Founded in 19l6 during the Progressive era when reform in education was a popular goal, Bank Street has continued to seek a “better type of education” that is “child-centered, humane, and interactive.” Its innovative approaches influence thousands of teachers and students through its graduate school of education, model School for Children, and countless collaborations and partnerships with schools and colleges. Dean Snyder has contributed to the dialogue through his research and extensive writings on teacher development, exemplary practices, and assessment.

Funded by an endowment from Gil and Sally Kerlin, the Kerlin Science Institute seeks to improve the teaching of science by, first, equipping teachers with a sound grounding in subject content and, then, helping them discover how to most effectively convey this knowledge to students. Each year, a different science discipline is taught. This first year focused on physics. The 17 participants—teachers from around the city, teachers from the Bank Street model school, and Bank Street graduate students—immersed themselves in a rigorous three-week, eight-hour a day, summer physics course taught by Professor Richard Steinberg of City College. In a follow-up, year long, once a month practicum, the teachers are exploring how to best teach the subject; each will develop a 3 to 4 week new unit on physics. Why physics for the inaugural program? Dr. Snyder explained that middle school standards have a great deal of physics and that in interviews he discovered a “subculture of physicists interested in experiential learning.” One of the summer experiments, utilizing convex and concave mirrors, dealt with light—how does it get reflected, how does it bend. The questions then posed of teachers was: where would you place reflectors and solar heating panels on a house and why. It is hoped that the Kerlin program, which emphasizes subject content as the entry point to teaching science and inquiry-based learning, will become a model for melding hard science and pedagogy.

In another exciting initiative, Bank Street College is proud to be one of 11 sites chosen (the only one in New York) for Teachers for a New Era (TNE). Funded by the Carnegie Foundation, with help from the Ford, Annnenberg, and Rockefeller foundations, TNE seeks to define good teaching and learning and develop, in a systematic way, proven, excellent teacher education programs. Data collected from actual classroom observation of exemplary teachers with track records of success will be compared with current theory and teacher education models. Good teaching involves being able to achieve concrete goals as well as articulate abstract principles. A successful student who gets a “right” answer will also understand underlying relationships. “Educators need to be more systematic and rigorous in the collection of hard data,” underscores Dean Snyder. Based on investigations of actual classroom practice, assessments over time of graduates’ impacts on student achievement, and input from subject matter specialists, teacher-training models will be transformed to produce better teachers and students. “One of the exciting concepts we’ve proposed and implemented blurs the distinctions between professors and teachers in a district. In Region 9, a Bank Street professor becomes a school faculty member. There is a sharing and clustering of resources. Coaches wear two hats: they are mentors to teachers as well as teachers for children. “Institutionally, significant changes are happening,” exclaimed the dean. This is an exciting time for Bank Street. Keep tuned.#

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