College is taking 20 Towson State University juniors back to elementary school.
In the halls of Owings Mills Elementary, amid children in kindergarten through fifth grade, these young women are attending college classes and easing into the adult world of teaching.
Meanwhile, the 700 elementary youngsters are enjoying more attention and better teaching and "a new sense of pride" in themselves and their school.
These college students are the first to test a new wave of teacher training in Baltimore County that puts education majors, and their college professors, into real schools, stocked not only with real youngsters but also with dedicated teachers. The students are the first "junior interns" at Owings Mills Professional Development School, which still is Owings Mills Elementary School, but now more than that.
It also is a center for training future teachers and eventually will be the county's hub of teacher training.
"The focus is not just on the intern program; it's the continuing development of the teacher," said Teresa Field, assistant professor of elementary education at Towson State and the project's coordinator.
Owings Mills is a first such collaboration for the county and the university. The school's large enrollment, diverse student body and enthusiastic administration led to its being chosen for the pilot project, which started in September. Next year, Cromwell Valley and Hillendale -- to be renamed Halstead Academy -- elementaries in the Towson area are expected to become a pair of professional development schools, with the same group of interns working at both schools, said Dr. Field.
This approach does not replace traditional student teaching. In fact, it puts college students into a school for part of two school years
for their own instruction and offers them many opportunities to work with youngsters. They also see educational theory put into practice.
"It's a tremendous opportunity to teach teachers the way they need to learn," said Lynn Cole, assistant professor of elementary education and one of two Towson instructors at Owings Mills.
Last semester, the college students, chosen randomly, took four three-credit courses: methods of teaching reading, language arts methods, children's literature and field studies. Before the Owings Mills project, they might have been taught by three instructors on the Towson campus and then sent to different schools for the field studies.
Now, Dr. Cole and her colleague, Associate Professor Bess Altwerger, mingle the reading, language and literature courses almost into one four-hour whole. "The cage is being opened from [around] these isolated courses," Dr. Cole said.
And from "the antiquated system at the university," said Dr. Altwerger. "This is the most exciting thing I've done in a classroom in a long time."
"By the time these interns get to be student teachers, they will have known a lot of different kids," said Lisa Greenberg, a second-grade teacher at Owings Mills. "These interns have a two-year head start."
"This school bridges the gap between the college experience and the real world," said third-grade teacher Brenda Yarrison. "It's a real long-term situation."
The Towson State students aren't the only ones benefiting, school officials say.
The Owings Mills youngsters have more adults to work with because the junior interns frequently are in classrooms to observe, test theories and help students and teachers.
For example, one day recently, junior intern Melissa Bell helped a struggling youngster write a fairy tale. "It took us 20 minutes to write three sentences," she said. Faced with ever larger classes, most elementary teachers would not have time to do that.
"The adult-student ratio has been reduced at a time when that's going up [in other schools]," said Owings Mills Principal Chet Scott.
Also, the youngsters can reap the benefits of "an excellent teaching staff," many of whom are new to Owings Mills, Mr. Scott said. "I have a staff of people who were willing to come here to accept a bigger challenge."
When Owings Mills became a professional development school, the staff members had to reapply for their jobs; no one was automatically carried over from last year. That resulted in about half of the staff leaving, said Mr. Scott. A dozen teachers decided they did not want to stay, and nine others were not selected in the interview process and were reassigned.
"It was not a comfortable process, but it was a necessary thing," the principal said. "I see good teaching. I see happy students. You can feel it. I see a difference in the youngsters -- a sense of pride, higher expectations for themselves, a better understanding of who's in control. They get the message that they are very important."
Each member of the Owings Mills professional staff receives a $1,260 stipend for the additional workload. The school system, Towson State and state Department of Education contributed the stipend money.
"Everyone here is committed to the same thing," said Dr. Field. "There's a sense of purpose here that you can feel.
"It's a wonderful thing for our students. They are getting things here that they could not get anywhere else. They are looked at as equal members of the community . . . they don't feel as if they are student slaves."
Besides the junior interns, Owings Mills has its usual complement of Towson State student teachers -- now called "interns" -- shuttling in and out of the school for half a semester.
They also say their training is different from colleagues' student-teaching experience in other schools.
"The morale here is unbelievable," said Towson senior Jennifer Bischer. She called the teachers "the best of the best" who share ideas and work with each other. "If they have something good, they run off 20 copies," she said.
Ms. Bischer said she and fellow interns talked about their Owings Mills experience and "we decided there was nothing bad about it."
"My friends are so jealous," said intern Stacey Kent as she was finishing her student-teaching assignment.
The Owings Mills staff is as enthusiastic as the interns. "When I got my first intern, it just made me want to work harder," said Ms. Yarrison.
"I'm enjoying teaching more," said Ms. Greenberg. "The environment is safe. You can risk-take."
First-grade teacher Karla Capece, who has been at Owings Mills 19 years, said, "You have no time to get stagnant here."
All agreed they are working harder and longer. "That parking lot used to be empty at 4:30," said second-grade teacher Tara Roberts. "Now it's full until 7 o'clock." And, they have more camaraderie, among themselves and with the students and teachers from Towson. "It's been so easy to come together," she said.
Mr. Scott said the program may not be moving fast enough for these enthusiastic teachers. The holdup in some cases is money, he said. In others, it's just not being able to do everything at once.
One thing that needs more attention is a student's transition into the classroom, he said, so there is continuity between intern and classroom teacher. He is eager to get more teacher training set up, and make it easier for teachers to take advantage of what's offered.
And, Mr. Scott also would like to have year-round school. "I don't know what my kids are doing all summer," he said. "That's when you have time to explore the curriculum and take field trips. The momentum is there and we don't want to lose that."